Decision
by Yaodai
Summary: What if Yoshiki did the most logical thing possible? Not letting Ayumi go back to the Heavenly Host was the best thing he could do for her. For himself, however... In the hindsight, going in all alone wasn't too clever.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I'm honestly surprised that I've never seen this idea before. And I sort of went through the whole site with filters on. Maybe I'm just blind or something.  
>Well, nothing like writing stuff I would want to read myself, I guess.<br>I'm not a native speaker, so while I'm trying, the grammar might be off here and there. Fell free to point stuff out!

**Chapter 1**  
><strong>The Third Choice<strong>

What Yuki just told them was like a slap in the face.

Their friends, the one that were still living - and wasn't that a terrifying sentence on its own - were still imprisoned in the Closed Spaces and there was no way for them to get out of there. Soon, they will suffer the fate of any other unfortunate soul that wandered into the Heavenly Host Elementary School.

Unless they go back and risk not only their lives, but their whole eternity.

One glance at Ayumi and that stubborn glint in her eyes told him everything Yoshiki needed to know. She already decided and was going to throw herself back into the nightmare only for the mere chance of saving somebody, anybody.

Yoshiki knew her well enough to tell that trying to talk her out of it was going to be helpless.

"Kishinuma..." she nervously licked her lips, her gaze locked onto him. "I know I shouldn't ask you about something like this, but..."

There was no need for her to finish the sentence. Yoshiki already knew what she wanted from him and he couldn't help himself, but shiver.

Yoshiki remembered all to clear her face, when she was overtaken by some nasty spirit and the mad laughter rang in his ears. His shoulder throbbed painfully and another shiver ran along his spine. He was still wet and cold too, from the time when another spirit made the girl jump into the dull waters of the pool.

It was the scariest moment of his life, when he understood what happened and when Yoshiki finally managed to drag her back on the surface, she wasn't breathing.

And now she wanted to go there again.

Yoshiki closed both hands into fists, hard enough to feel fingernails biting into his skin.

"Kishinuma?" Ayumi asked again.

There was only one thing he could do now.

Before Shinozaki could react in any way, Yoshiki grabbed her by the neck like a kitten and dragged out of the classroom, pushing her outside. Then he shut the doors closed and turned the key in the lock before she managed to react in any way.

"You... you bastard!" Ayumi growled and banged at the doors with her fists. "Open the doors! Now!"

"Sorry," Yoshiki said, shaking his head. "It's too dangerous for you."

"What are you-" she gasped, suddenly understanding. "You idiot, you don't know anything about ghosts!"

"I know what I have to do well enough."

Yuki explained it clearly enough. Appease Sachiko herself. Find a red statue for Satoshi, because it was important for some reason. Maybe it was creating a passage between both sides of the school? Otherwise they wouldn't be able to meet and they needed to if they wanted to get out of the Heavenly Host.

"But I...!" Ayumi protested.

"No," Yoshiki said again. "You're not going anywhere. I won't let you."

"You don't have any right to make this decision!"

Yoshiki snickered. Of course he didn't. But it hadn't stop him in the slightest. Knowing that Ayumi was here, safe and sound... it was all he needed to be at peace.

"Don't worry," he said softly, resting his forehead on the surface of the doors for a short moment. "I promise, I'll drag Mochida and everyone else back home."

"Don't you dare...!" Ayumi sniffed on the other side. "Don't you dare do it without me!"

He smirked and slowly stepped back, turning towards Yuki. The little dead girl was patiently waiting, her single eye observing his actions with the complete indifference. The unnatural dark shadows were already reaching hungrily towards him, like the darkness itself was about to swallow Yoshiki and the storm still roared on the outside, restlessly attacking the windows with wind and water. Only because the classroom didn't smell like something rotten Yoshiki knew that they still were in the real world.

"I'm going alone," Yoshiki said to the ghost. "Don't drag her back into the Heavenly Host, no matter what."

"I don't think I would be able to," Yuki admitted. "Even if I would want to."

"I'm glad."

The reality curled and twisted around him and the darkness swallowed him once again.

xxx

When Yoshiki grabbed her and dragged out of the classroom, Ayumi was too shocked to react in any way. He was never touching her like that. Hell, she was pretty sure he was doing everything he possibly could to avoid touching people at all. But even during these few times in the Heavenly Host, Kishinuma was more... delicate. Almost tender. Now it was completely different, his iron grip on her neck was strong enough to leave bruises.

Ayumi was already exhausted from all the running and fear of the last few hours. A dizzy spell caused her to lose her balance and before she regained it, Kishinuma slammed the doors shut.

The click of the lock sounded like thunderbolt in her ears.

No matter how hard she banged at the doors or how long she was screaming, the idiot just ignored her.

"What are you playing at?! Kishinuma!" There was no answer, because the classroom was already empty. She could feel it, Yuki's presence vanishing from this world.

Ayumi slowly slid down onto the floor, her side leaning on the doors. Her right hand scratched at the wooden surface despite the small pangs of pain going through her fingers. Her nails were completely broken and many small cuts and scratches has reopened.

"Just what the hell were you thinking?" she sniffed. "This is not the time to play the knight in the shining armor, dammit!"

He knew nothing about the ghosts or spirit world or anything at all. All he wanted was to get out of that school. Ayumi remembered his fury by the closed entrance doors way to well. It was scary, to see somebody loose it like that, especially somebody who was like Kishinuma – cold and snarky and impassive. The sudden explosion of fury freaked her as much as the ghosts that wandered through the corridors of the Closed Spaces.

So why he did that? Why did he decided that returning to that cursed place on his own was a good idea at all? He was going to die in there, they all were going to die and Ayumi couldn't do anything to help them.

"Yuki, dammit!" she smacked the doors once again. The hit was weak, but all the strength left Ayumi awhile ago. "Why did you listen to him?!"

Without the ghost of the little girl, there was no way back into the Heavenly Host.

Unless...

Ayumi straightened up and reached into her pockets, frantically searching pulling everything outside, afraid that even this could have slighted through her fingers. Her cell phone was still there and the battery hasn't died yet either.

With a shaking hands, Ayumi choose the contact list and then scrolled through it and picked Hinoe name. Her sister surely would be able to help. Hinoe always knew what to do to make it all better.

"Ayumi? Ayumi, where are you? What happened?" Hearing her sister voice... it felt so normal, so right.

"Can you come to my school?" she asked, her voice slightly shaking. "Please?"

"What happened?" Hinoe repeated the question and Ayumi was able to tell there was a tension in her voice.

"Just come," she said, because she couldn't force herself to tell the whole story over the phone.

"I'm on my way," Hinoe said with a sigh.

Ayumi exhaled deeply, feeling a first spark of relief in her heart. Everything was going to be fine, Hinoe was going to come and make everything fine. All Ayumi needed to do, was sit here and wait for the help.

She looked at the phone and frowned slightly, then slowly, with a shaking hands, started to go through the files.

The phone wasn't the newest model, but Ayumi liked it; it was a gift from Hinoe when she learned that her little sister became class representative in her new high school. Hinoe was so proud of her back then...

The memory card was just enough to store a few songs Ayumi liked and a bunch of photos. And there was the last file.

Ayumi heart skip a beat when she found it. She probably forget to delete it yesterday, when she returned with the printed doll she needed for that blasted ritual. There still was a way back to the Heavenly Host for her. Ayumi was sure there was a printer in the TI classroom. She just needed to go there and then tear up the Sachiko doll with Hinoe...

She swallowed. Would it be fair, to ask her sister to do something so dangerous? But there was just no other way.

Ayumi curled her legs up. Only now she noticed how cold it was in the empty corridor she was sitting in. The damp clothes couldn't keep her warm at all and the rain, ramming furiously at the windows wasn't helping at all. It was reminding Ayumi way to well about the rain pouring from the dark skies over the pool at Heavenly Host Elementary and the dull, dark waters that took away her breath.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** This is a very early update, but I wanted to have some actual content published.  
>Also, Blood Drive makes me want to ship Yoshiki with Azusa, because it doesn't hurt as much.<p>

**Chapter 2**  
><strong>Meetings<strong>

Yoshiki decided that a relief was definitely the last think one was supposed to feel when entering the corridors of the Heavenly Host Elementary, but he couldn't help it. Relief was what he felt. Relief and satisfaction. He was at peace. He kept Shinozaki from charm's way, like he promised he would. She was safe, she was home.

"That was brave," Yuki pointed out, her face expressionless. "But stupid, too. Now you're all alone."

"I don't mind," he shook his head.

"Next time we meet, run."

He nodded. It was good to be warned before discovering on his own that the ghost girl could no longer control her action and has returned to murderous fury. Before he stepped out of the classroom - same one he, Shinozaki and Miss Yui arrived at the first time - he forced himself to take a few deep breaths.

He needed to think, to have some sort of a plan, but the throbbing pain in his head was preventing him from coming up with anything that made much sense. Shinozaki was right, he was clueless about the ghosts. But, besides that one time when a ghost tried to made him strangle himself, nothing managed to get under his skull, so maybe the ghosts were ignorant about him too. At least a little bit.

"First, find Satoshi," Yoshiki finally decided. "He's supposed to be the smart one anyway."

He slowly walked out of the classroom and proceed to walk through long, dark corridors, expecting that some nasty thing - or the guy with the hammer - was going to jump at him from every dark corner, but nothing was happening.

It was almost like the school decided to completely ignore him. Not that Yoshiki wanted any attention from this cursed place. It was just making him feel uneasy. Like something was watching as a giant cat would, waiting for a moment just right to strike.

Soon enough Yoshiki discovered that the school changed shape yet again and it was impossible for him to walk through a certain point. It looked almost like somebody cut the building in half, tearing a hole through all of the storey's huge enough to be impossible to cross.

"Of course," he muttered, eyeing the distance.

It was way too far to even think about making that idiotic board-bridge trick again and he didn't even wanted to think about jumping. He wasn't suicidal. He was about to turn around, to once again walk through the part of the school that he could reach, when he noticed a familiar figure that was about to turn into one of the corridors on the other side.

"Satoshi!"

The other boy turned around and gasped with astonishment. Moment later he was standing on the other side of the hole with a bright smile and Nakashima standing by his side.

They both looked more or less fine. She had some blood strains on her skirt and seemed to be limping, while Satoshi looked almost like he fell down one of the holes in the floor. Yoshiki could swear he had splinters on his shirt.

"I'm so glad to see you guys!" Yoshiki sighed with relief.

"It's good to see you too, man," Satoshi nodded. "Are you alone?"

"At the beginning I turned up here with Shinozaki and Miss Yui," he said with a sigh then started explaining, trying to not waste too much time.

"Suzumoto..." Nakashima muttered, covering her mouth with palm of her hand.

"Yeah," Yoshiki sadly nodded. "And I still can't find Miss Yui, no matter how long I wander around, looking."

"It's good that at least class rep is safe," Satoshi sighed.

"How exactly did you talk her into staying?" Nakashima asked, frowning slightly. "She can be very stubborn when she wants to be."

Yoshiki flustered. "I, uh... might have dragged her out of the class and closed myself inside?"

"She is going to be so angry when we return..."

"Shinozaki can slap me as much as she want," Yoshiki just shrugged. His face still felt way to hot. "I'll keep an eye for Yuka and the rest."

Then it was Satoshi's turn to share their side of the story. It... wasn't nice. Yoshiki didn't really know Shinohara, not being very social in class. Besides, she always had way too much energy for his liking, so he preferred to keep his distance. But now, she was dead and still and it just wasn't okay.

"What exactly are we supposed to do with this statue?" Satoshi asked, looking at the thing that Yuki said was of big importance.

"Haven't the slightest," Yoshiki shrugged. "But there's supposed to be a second one somewhere. Maybe there is a place on our side to put these down and... I don't know, the school will be forced to change in a way that would allow us to meet up properly? Without talking over a big hole?"

"Like in some sort of an adventure game?" Nakashima shook her head.

"I know, this sounds stupid," he admitted. "But we have already found two levers that made the floor to appear where smaller holes were, so we could walk further. So hell, why not statues. "

"It's not like we should expect this place to be too logical," Satoshi sighed. "We should set up time, to meet again here. Is your phone still working?"

"Yeah," Yoshiki nodded. "I've charged it during the festival, so the battery is going to last for awhile even if I'll constantly use it as a torch."

"Good to hear," Satoshi nodded. "So... meet up in an hour?"

"Sounds good," Yoshiki nodded. He didn't want them to leave. He didn't want to be alone. But he knew it was their best shot on getting out of this place.

Yoshiki swallowed. This really was no time for feeling sorry over his own fate. He backtracked all the way to the entrance of the school, deciding that it was the best place to start his search yet again.

Yoshiki doubted that he was going to find a red statue - or anything useful at all - in the lockers or among the shoes on the floor, but he decided to went through every place as careful as it was possible. He didn't want to backtrack again only because he missed something.

Besides, other people left clues behind them, writing them on the scraps of paper they found, pieces of posters and even floorboards. Maybe somewhere among the mess was a message from Miss Yui, Yuka or Morishique? Surely someone had realized that even if they were unable to communicate through phones, there was still another way of leaving a message.

In the far corner, stuffed between a locked and a wall, he found a notebook. It took him a few minutes to take it out from the hidden place and afterwards he just grimaced, not sure if it was worth of all that effort. The notebook was pink, with a very girly pattern on it and it lacked most of the pages inside. Considering how it looked like, somebody tore them in one, quick movement, but not paying too much attention, leaving a pieces of random pages still on the inside, covered in small, elegant writing.

Yoshiki furrowed his brow, when he turned to the first page. The name of the owner was there and he could swear he recognized it. Naho Saenoki, the dead girl that tossed them a clue how to appease ghosts once in a while. Shinozaki said she was a some sort of a specialist in the supernatural stuff and a writer.

This, he decided, might to be important after all. He thoughtfully read through all he could and then tried to decipher something more from the scraps of the torn pages that were still inside.

Then he cursed loudly, because the answers he was looking for, weren't there.

"Well," Yoshiki sighed. "Another thing to have an eye for."

It slowly started to look like he was going to need a bag to carry all that stuff around. Naho's notes, Kou Kibiki's tapes, the statue... and anything else that could be of use.

For now, Yoshiki stuffed the notebook inside one of the pockets in his jackets, the one on the inside. The book barely fit, but at least there was no risk for the loose pages to get lost somewhere.

He looked around for some more time, but hadn't found anything else that might be of use.

"That's it then," Yoshiki murmured under his breath. Talking to himself probably wasn't the healthiest of the way to cope with this situation, but even the sound of his own voice was making the situation easier to handle.

Yoshiki slowly crept outside and looked around. It was hard to tell in such dim light if he was alone, but there was not much noise, besides his own breathing and the rain smashing into the walls and windows of the haunted building. Deciding, it was safe for the moment, Yoshiki carefully inspected the floor and posters on the walls, looking for something to catch his attention.

After that, Yoshiki turned left and grimaced. If he was going to walk further this way, the only thing he was going to face were the stairs. Leading to the corridor where the toilets were and that... just wasn't the place Yoshiki wanted to visit anytime soon.

Besides, he should check the rest of the first floor before going any further upstairs.

xxx

When Ayumi Shinozaki decided to save his fists from meeting Mr. Tsubota's jaw - and a whole new world of trouble - Yoshiki found it hilarious. For somebody like her, to lie and put reputation at risk for someone like him.

By all means, Tsubota was more than right pointing out the fact that there was no chance in Hell for Yoshiki to actually continue his education even if he somehow managed through the senior high with grades decent enough to have any sort of a chance to get a spot at some university. He simply had no money for that. It was barely enough for his rent and food and Yoshiki doubted that dear dad would help him in any way. Right now he was paying for the school only because he waited for Yoshiki to drop off and prove him right.

Yoshiki shook his head and walked out of the cabin, not carrying to flush the cigarette he quickly discarded there when the coach caught him in the act.

Another thing Tsubota was right about - smoking was a bad habit. Mostly because it was eating through his funds faster than anything else; health was not among things Yoshiki really cared about. He just had enough of embarrassment when he had to ask Satoshi for help. They were best friends since forever, but it still felt just wrong, to ask him to share his lunch. Again.

"It's decided," Yoshiki sighed, patting the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. "You're the last one."

This was definitely going to be a pain, but at least now he had something to occupy his mind.

Shinozaki.

While he never talked to the girl before, he knew she was the class representative of one of the other groups at Kisaragi Academy. She had a good reputation among both teachers and her peers. Always nice, always ready to help.

Yoshiki was curious just how long it would take her to break out of the character and do something selfish, something that would break her sweet and nice persona.

Waiting for Shinozaki to fail was the only reason Yoshiki started to attend the school somewhat regularly. After all, he wanted to be there to see it.

A week had passed, then another one and then it turned into a month and she was still the same person.

Weird, Yoshiki decided, observing her from across the gym, while she was pleading with Tsubota for the sake of some unlucky bastard who landed on the coach's bad side.

She wasn't getting anything out of it. Anything positive at least, since Tsubota could be really unpleasant when he wanted to be. He usually wanted to be. He usually wanted to be, since he seemed to find picking on students funny. Or something, Yoshiki wasn't sure.

Shinozaki however was facing the man without fear and pretty much wrapping him around her small finger, using her innocent looks and perfect reputation to help someone get out of the trouble, even if she hadn't even exchanged more than few words with that person.

There were days, when Shinozaki wasn't at school at all. Apparently, she was of weak health. Cold was picking her apart on regular basis. But when she was back - still slightly pale and sniffling a little - she was getting right into the fight for her fellow students, like she was at her finest.

Bad health and unmerciful school system was a really nasty combination; Shinozaki missed one of the exam sessions and was still sick during the beginning of the last trimester, ending up with not the best scores and pretty much no chance to re-do anything.

It was just plain unfair and Yoshiki felt for the girl. She was one of these people who really cared about stuff like scores and probably was planning to get into some nice university. She was down for a whole two lessons period, but during the lunch break she was once again walking with her chin high and a new determination in her eyes. Yoshiki couldn't help himself, but stare at her with fascination.

Then he starting doing the math. It was probably a bad thing to stalk someone like that, just to see that person fail. However Yoshiki couldn't help himself. It was the first spark of any sort of interest in him since the middle of junior high. He couldn't just ignore it.

Especially since there actually was a chance for him to see Shinozaki's performance up close; because of these not so perfect grads of her. If Yoshiki was to push himself a bit and keep attending the school every day, then he had pretty big chances to land in the same class. It was going to be a drag. Especially with the literature and English stuff, Yoshiki never was good at putting words together.

Yoshiki had no idea at what point exactly he fell for her, but he fell hard and landed face-first in the odd and absurd world of feeling he had no idea what to do with.

xxx

When Ayumi left for school, blushed from the excitement and all ready for the festival, Hinoe smiled back and waved her goodbye, as she always did. However it was a false smile. Something was up in the air, something bad and it wasn't just the storm that was coming as predicted by the weather channel.

The feeling of wrongness was leaving a bitter taste on her tongue and the more hours passed, the worse it got. Hinoe shivered and walked to the bathroom again, deciding it was the time to brush her teeth again. It wasn't helping much, but it was at least something.

Just what was going on?, she thought, when she spat into the sink.

The spiritual energies around the city seemed to be stirring and whirling like crazy and the feeling of doom approaching smashed into Hinoe with a blinding force.

She woke up on the bathroom floor, with the mint foam dried on her lips and pain in her joints. The position she landed wasn't the one of the most natural and her body was protesting such treatment.

With a groan, Hinoe massaged her head, then pulled herself up and washed her face. Then she drank for a long minute straight from the tap, not carrying about bringing a glass at all. The cold water made her fell all better and the black shapes finally weren't dancing before her eyes.

"What was that?" Hinoe muttered.

She wasn't prone to losing consciences. But then again, Ayumi was diagnosed with anemia just yesterday and Hinoe own diet wasn't that far from what her sister was eating. She probably should go visit a doctor too.

After closing the bathroom doors, she walked back to her room, stopping only in the kitchen to crap the scrap of paper with the clinic phone number on it; they should've discarded it after Ayumi's visit, but How Hinoe was glad they didn't.

Hinoe was copying the number into her cell memory, since it was too late to make the call today, when phone rang, filling the room with noisy, cheerful melody. The sudden noise startled Hinoe enough that she dropped it. Like it wasn't enough, the cell somehow managed to get under the bed after falling to the floor too and she had to kneel on the floor and try to find it, blindly moving her hand around.

While she was at it, the melody died only to start anew. Someone was stubborn. Good for her. It was much easier to find the cell when the screen was on. Hinoe was still grinning, when she stood up victorious, with the phone in her hand, but the smile disappeared from her face as soon, as she heard her sister's frantic voice.

Then it was all about running down the stairs and towards her car, barely remembering about things like closing the doors. Whatever had happened to her sister, it was bad.

Hinoe parked her car as close to the entrance as she could and then ran into the school and all the way where Ayumi's class was, trying to move up the stairs as fast as possible, swallowing two or three steps with every pace.

Ayumi looked beyond miserable. Her hair were messy beyond recognition and her school uniform was full of smaller and bigger tears and dark stains all over. It looked like it was wet, too.

"What happened?" Hinoe gasped, dropping on the knees in front of the miserable girl.

Ayumi raised her head and looked at her, tears streaming from bloodshot eyes. Her gaze seemed to be haunted and the innocence that was in her eyes just a few hours ago - gone.

"Ayumi, darling, what happened to you?" Hinoe asked again, but Ayumi just cried more. At least she moved towards her, longing for contact.

Hinoe hugged her tightly.

Ayumi was cold as ice, but she wasn't even shaking. A bad sign, Hinoe decided, rocking back and forth, trying to give at least a little bit of comfort for her hurting little sister. It was hard to even push Ayumi away for a short little moment, to make her take off the dirty and wet blouse and put on Hinoe's sweater instead.

Only after a long, painful moment Ayumi was well enough to speak.

"We d-did a charm," she hiccupped. Then, in broken voice and - finally - shaking like a leaf, Ayumi told her about the Charm on the Naho's site.

"You have to do the charm with me!" Ayumi said, with a strange look in her eyes. "I have to go back there!"

"Go back where?" Hinoe frowned. "And why?"

"I don't have time!" Ayumi wailed. "Please!"

"Darling," Hinoe sighed. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what exactly had happened to you."

Ayumi had no other choice but to continue her story. The more she talked, the more horrid it was becoming and there was still more and more.

"...and then," Ayumi sniffed. "He just dragged me out of the class and closed the doors before I could do anything! So you see, I really need to get back and save everyone...!"

Hinoe was silent for a few moment, giving Ayumi time to catch her breath and herself - to think.

While Ayumi was talking, Hinoe pulled out her phone and checked the blog herself. The Charm was... odd. Usually one was supposed to count the ghost into things like that. The spirit was still a person, after all and could be offended by treating him like he wasn't there.

"I think," Hinoe said slowly. "That he did a good thing, that friend of yours."

"How can you say that?!" Ayumi protested. "He don't know anything about ghosts! He's going to... they all...!"

"Ayumi, darling, breathe," Hinoe said, putting her hand on her sister shoulder. "Breathe, okay?"

Only after Ayumi wasn't in danger of hyperventilating anymore, Hinoe started to explaining.

"It sound," she said slowly. "That you were taken over by some sort of a ghost at least once."

"I... I don't remember clearly," Ayumi blushed slightly. "Only in back in the bathroom, when I woke to Kishinuma hugging me..."

"He has good instincts," Hinoe nodded. "And it was a good decision to not let you go back there."

"You're saying that only because you're my sister!"

Hinoe couldn't possibly lie to her sister. And Ayumi was at least partially right. She really was glad that Kishinuma forced her to stay.

"Ayumi, you're anemic. Beyond that, you're really exhausted. The ghost would try to take over your body again and with each attack it will going to be much harder to shake off their influence."

Hinoe herself was a medium and more than once lend her mouth to the spirits, so they could communicate with living. Some of them turned to be more malevolent than others, hungry for being alive again and ready to steal that life by any means necessary. Pushing them out was always exhausting. Since Ayumi was her sister it was possible that she had similar gift, one that awakened in the cursed grounds. By spending any more time in that place she could end up lost forever, a mere prisoner in her own body overtaken by something entirely else, slowly disappearing completely.

"But-!"

"I know you're brave, Ayumi. And I know you would do anything for your friends," Hinoe continued slowly. "But sometimes you have to trust your friends to come home safe on their own."

"I don't even know why the Charm ended up like that," Ayumi sniffed. "It wasn't supposed to do anything!"

"I know," Hinoe petted her head. "I know."

"Naho said it was because someone butchered the Charm."

"I don't believe it," Hinoe muttered. "This doesn't seem right at all."

"Will you stay with me?"

"You want to wait for your friends?"

Ayumi nodded.

"That's fine," Hinoe smiled. "We should just be silent, so they don't catch us on trespassing. It was awhile since I finished high school."

"You're not that old."

"Why, thank you!" Hinoe smiled and wrapped her arm around Ayumi. It was late at night and the rain wasn't stopping. The odd feeling of evil approaching was still noticeable in the air, but at least now Hinoe could tell where it came from.

Was it the cause of the Charm misfiring like that? That much of evil energy for sure would twist and bend everything.

xxx

All of sudden hearing human footsteps in a place like that was startling. Yoshiki saw with his own eyes what the most innocently looking things could do in this cursed school.

The footsteps were getting close, so Yoshiki decided to do the sane thing. He ducked behind the corner and his in the shadows, hoping that whoever was going this way would turn away.

It definitely wasn't Miss Yui. She was wearing heels and unless she found trainers her size - which was doubtful in an Elementary school - her footsteps would sound different. besides, it was not even one person.

Soon enough, he could see two girls walking through the corridors. They both were wearing white uniforms Yoshiki was not familiar with.

His crouching position made it difficult for Yoshiki to see the actually important things, but was way to late for finding another hiding place.

One of the girls was wearing her hair short and seemed to be rather thin, but not in the way Shinozaki was. Class Rep always seemed to be like a porcelain doll - delicate and breakable. This one however wasn't like that. As far as he could tell, her tights were pretty muscular for a girl and she had spring in her steps too.

The second girl was higher and had a bit more meat on her bones in all the right places. Her hair was long and blonde. It seemed to shine almost like a torch in the dim corridors.

Yoshiki grimaced, knowing it was probably how his own head looked like. Small miracle they hadn't noticed him by now.

Yoshiki ended up following the two girls for quite awhile. He wanted to know where they were heading, or at least when they will left this floor, leaving him to search for stuff in peace.

Then, a few words picked his interest.

"Hey, wifey," the shorter one said at some point. "You think it was really a good decision? To go here?"

"It was the right thing to do," the blonde nodded energetically. "You saw for yourself how terrible this place is. If we find a way to exorcise poor Sachiko's spirit...!"

Yoshiki blinked. Were they completely mental? They knew that the charm was going to transport them... here and they still did it, because they fancied themselves as some sort of a ghostbusters?!

"We were here for quite awhile and we have found nothing!"

"That's not the reason to stop trying!"

Crazy, Yoshiki was sure of it.

But at least they seemed to be alive and not have any malicious intent. For now, at least. The girls carefully created a makeshift bridge with a loose board - apparently everyone in this place had similar ideas - and crossed it slowly.

Yoshiki decided it was far enough for him. Even if they decide to turn back, he should be done with his search on this floor. When he was about to turn around and walk away, he heard a way to familiar, tell-tale heavy steps. It was coming from the place the unfamiliar girls went.

Yoshiki swallowed. He really wanted to run. The mere memory of that guy towering over him with heavy hammer in his hands, slowly raising the tool... But he couldn't just let him kill someone else. Not when there was a small chance to save that someone.

He stopped by the edge of the floor and tried to spot in the darkness huge figure of Yoshikazu or the white clothes. It didn't took him long to find them, the white uniforms standing out in the darkness like nothing else.

"Hey, you!" Yoshiki shouted, stepping on the end of the wooden bridge on his side.

The girls noticed him. Yoshikazu did too, stopping for a moment and staring in his direction, like he couldn't decide, which survivor he should smack with his hammer first. The pause gave the girls enough time to cross the distance towards the edge of the floor.

But then the huge man started to move again, surprisingly fast for someone of his size.

"Here!" Yoshiki screamed. "Hurry!"

The blog girl nodded and stepped on the bridge from their side, pushing her friend on the board.

"But…!" the other one protested.

"Just run!"

With two people holding the bridge still, it wasn't so shaky and one could cross it much faster than normally. It was still dangerous, balancing over a huge drop, while standing on a piece of board that could or could not give up at any moment, but risking a fall was much better than staying where Yoshikazu was. And he was close.

The first girl jumped over the edge and stopped behind Yoshiki, to observe her friend. The blonde was finally on the bridge, but Yoshikazu was just a few steps behind the girl. As soon as he set his foot on the other end of the bridge, the wood creaked under him and started to break.

Yoshiki reacted on pure instinct. He bended over and grabbed the girl by the hand, pulling her as hard as he could. He lost his balance and fell onto his back, but he was still holding her hand pulling her down with him. She landed heavily on him, with a small shriek escaping her mouth.

In the exact same moment the wooden board broke in half and Yoshikazu fell down the hole with a loud scream. Then there was a thud, followed by yet another sound of breaking wood.

Yoshiki breathed out with relief. He really didn't think that it was the end of Yoshikazu; the dude was already dead, so falling down and maybe breaking a leg would be just a bit inconvenient from his perspective.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

The blonde one pulled herself up on her elbows and smiled at him. Her long hair were obscuring his view and her face was pretty much the only thing he could see at the moment. And she was quite pretty. Her features were elegant, but there was still a bit of childish chubbiness to them and her mouth formed a small smile.

"Yes," the girl said. "Thank you."

She slowly stood up. It was a bit awkward for both of them, since he was lying underneath her, but at least under the jacked she had black turtleneck that covered everything that needed to be covered.

"Thank you," she said again. "If not for you showing up like that, we would be lost to this murderer."

"That Yoshikazu guy is not exactly the murderer here," Yoshiki muttered with a small grimace, standing up. If he keep falling onto the floor every five minutes his bruises were going to have bruises. "Well, by now he kinda is, I guess. But this place is not his doing."

"How do you know that?" the other girl frowned at him. "And who are you anyway?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**  
><strong>Meetings<strong>

Ayumi was pretty proud of herself, when she noticed that the boy with bleached hair stopped skipping the school. Saving him from Tsubota and then scolding for not taking his education seriously was the right thing to do. Even if talking herself out of the mess her little lie created was a bit tricky.

Kihinuma was hanging out mostly somewhere in the background, just sitting there and observing people, but not taking any part in anything that was going on. As far as Ayumi knew, he wasn't part of any of the clubs in the school. Ayumi considered for a short while to talking to him about joining some group, since being active was an important part of school life and it could count later on, but finally she decided against it. Too much was too much, especially so soon.

Then the final exams came and after that, a new semester started, with a new class and new homeroom teacher.

It wasn't the class she hoped to get in, but there was nothing to do - Ayumi got sick when she got sick and because of that her grades were butchered far beyond salvation. However she learned that the delinquent get into the same class and that made her angry. Her pride was wounded by the grades alone. To be shot down to the same level as someone like him...

Then Ayumi got even angrier, but this time at herself alone. By all means, she was supposed to be happy for the guy. She knew well that he had to work hard for getting so far in such short time. So she just put a smile on her face, hoping that it wasn't looking too false and introduced herself to the new classmates. It was actually a pretty fun group, with many interesting people mixed together and Ayumi started to feel grateful for not being good enough to get to the top class.

Kishinuma happened to be a pretty close friend of the most awesome boy she even meet, so Ayumi ended up surprised how often she ended up talking to him, while she was trying to learn something more about her crush. Sometimes it ended up in a pretty embarrassing way, like that time during the homeroom hours, when they had to cook a traditional dinner.

Ms. Yui barely finished talking when Mochida jumped right towards Kishinuma and looked like he really wasn't going to let the delinquent go. Ayumi was pretty sure that he just wanted to save his friend. She believed that - with the rest of the class to tell the truth - up until he actually started cooking. It was like observing an miracle coming to life. Once again, Ayumi's pride ended up wounded pretty badly. She never was too good in the kitchen and now she had to cook in the same room where her crush was standing. The more she was trying to create something nice, the worse it was getting. Everybody could see her failure and while her face was burning with embarrassment, Kishinuma just had to barge in and started salvaging her meal into something actually edible. He succeeded, naturally. Ayumi spend the evening crying into her pillow, while Hinoe was patting her on the backs and explaining that not all girls were good at things like cooking and it was fine to be bad at something.

Ayumi was terrified of going to school on the next day – of people making fun of her and pointing all mistakes they could think of – but it ended up just fine. With a lot of Shinohara bugging Kishinuma about all sorts of cooking tricks and recipes while hanging onto his arm, while the poor guy was trying to get away. It was one of the first times Ayumi actually saw him interacting with somebody other than Mochida. He was pretty bad at it, but at the same time she wasn't like she would expect of a delinquent.

Time was slowly passing and Ayumi was jumping from one project to another one, because there was always something to do, while Kishinuma was just there, in the background, doing things only when asked to.

People outside their class were still talking about him, building up odd little stories about him getting into fights, cigarettes and alcohol. But Kishinuma clearly wasn't smelling like he was smoking and Ayumi highly doubted that someone like Mochida would be best friends with some sort of a thug. Tsubota was still picking on Kishinuma, but then, the coach was picking on everyone.

Ayumi groaned, running fingers through her hair. She still wasn't able to understand just why Kishinuma all of sudden decided to play a hero, instead of letting her repair this enormous mistake she made with the Sachiko's Charm. He clearly understood that the death was not only a real possibility in the Closed Spaces, but there was also fate even worse awaiting.

Ayumi wrapped the loose sport blouse tighter around herself; since her clothes were still wet, Hinoe brought her own sport bag she packed earlier this day, planning on visiting the gym in the early morning. Thanks to that Ayumi had clean clothes to wear and a towel to dry her hair.

Meanwhile, Hinoe was working on her tablet, trying to find a reason why the charm worked the way it did, not accepting the answer Ayumi received earlier on from Naho.

"This just shouldn't work like that," she explained. "Not with something as innocent as asking a passing spirit for its blessing should have such dire consequences. I don't like the signs used in the spell either."

"What do you mean?"

"Just look at them," Hinoe quickly drawn all the symbols, not leaving any space between them. "And try to read them in different way than before."

Ayumi frowned, not sure what was wanted from her, but she obediently bend over the lettering and started reading, trying to find just what her sister had in mind. Then she found it, the way to read the name of Sachiko's Charm that fit the situation so much more.

"Oh," Ayumi gasped. "Oh! I should've seen it! Why I didn't...!"

"You weren't expecting it," Hinoe said with a small sigh. "Nobody did. As far as I can tell, Naho had a very good reputation and was well respected. I have no idea why she made a mistake like that."

"Her site is still up," Ayumi mumbled.

"Yes," Hinoe nodded. "Which is why I'm currently trying to contact everyone I know. If we can't close it, we can at least set up an attack on Naho's server, so it won't be accessible anymore."

"...is that legal?"

"No," Hinoe shook her head. "But that doesn't matter."

Ayumi wanted to protest, wanted to say something about committing a crime and how it was an evil thing to do. But when she opened her mouth, she found out that she had to words to be said. If the Charm was indeed wrong – or even if simply flunking it had such dire consequences – it had to be dealt with before too many people end up in that nightmare.

xxx

Yoshiki had to admit, the short–haired girl had one hell of a glare. She probably could make stone to start sweat if she tried hard enough. On the other hand, she had every right to be distrustful. In a place, where everything wanted to kill you – and most of it, human, ghosts or even the parts of building itself was actively trying to do so – it would be just plain stupid to be friendly towards someone who just showed up in the right moment. Yoshiki was sure that he would be more than just suspicious.

"Ran, be nice," the blonde huffed at her classmate. "My name is Azusa Takai and this is Ran Kobayashi."

"I would say it's pleasure but in this place..." Yoshiki shrugged, then introduced himself.

"So... what made you say that scary dude was not the murderer?" Ran asked yet again still glaring.

Yoshiki sighed and started his story.

"Seriously, if not for Yuki, I wouldn't believe it myself," he said grimacing slightly, his hand automatically reaching up to the painful spot on his head. "Especially after he smacked me."

"That... changes a lot, I think," Azusa muttered, furrowing her brow.

"Well, the tactic doesn't change, not really," Yoshiki shrugged. "But I have no idea what to do to appease someone like Sachiko. She's way too over the top."

"You want to appease her?" Ran blinked.

"Well, she is the one who really made this place, right?" he muttered. "I'm really no good in that spiritual stuff and all, but appeasing her would mean that she will stop bringing people here. So, yeah, that's what I'm here for."

"It was quite brave of you," Azusa murmured. "To come back here like that, for the sake of others."

"My friends are still here," he shrugged. "And besides, Shinozaki would talk Yuki to sending her here on her own. I couldn't just..."

"Hey, stop," Ran nudged him to the side, not trying to be delicate. It actually hurt a bit, when her bony elbow jabbed him under the ribs. "There's being humble and there's overdoing it. Why can you just admit that you decided to become the hero of this story or something?"

"I definitely don't feel like any hero," Yoshiki said with a grimace, massaging his side. He switched his position, so he was out of reach if Ran decided to use her elbows again.  
>The girl just grinned at him when she noticed what he was doing.<p>

"Anyhow," Azusa said with a gently smile, ignoring the quirky behavior of her friend. "You managed to gather a lot of useful data about the whole situation. We weren't even close to that."

"I had help," Yoshiki shrugged. "And a bit of luck. Besides, I'm still far away for finding a way to do anything for real. All I can really do, is to walk around the school and try to find the research notes Saenoki left behind, or some other stuff."

"Saenoki?" They both blinked, recognizing the name.

Yoshiki pulled out the damaged diary and let them quickly skim through what was left of its content.

"She's here too," he explained, while they were trying to decipher the kanji signs smeared on the pages. "And is dead. Doesn't seem to mind that much, though. She doesn't even looks dead. If not for her eyes, I would never guess…"

To tell the truth, that made Naho to be on a whole new level of creepy. The ghosts around the place at least had the decency to look dead. She didn't. She didn't even seem to be touched by the curse of the Heavenly Host. Which wasn't that bad, Yoshiki wouldn't wish for anyone to relive the moment of death over and over again, but Naho just… didn't seem to care at all. It was just plain wrong, to not care about all these dead people around, to not care about being imprisoned in this place forever and ever… Yoshiki couldn't help himself but shiver.

"It might be because she is… or was, a very powerful medium," Ran said with a small shrug, handing him the book. "Because of her powers, she is now capable of at least keeping her form corporeal enough to actually interact with things around here. She needs hands to pick items up, after all."

"This is quite a dedication, continuing research even after death," Azusa nodded.

Yoshiki decided to leave that without a comment, because all he saw in this situation was a whole bunch of craziness. Usually calling people in the occult thingie crazy, or even suggesting that something was plain insane, was meet with a rather loud and very angry reaction. Being all alone, just after she meet another living, sane people… he wouldn't be able to cope.

Shortly afterwards, they all decided it was time to go and look for more clues. They didn't dare to hope that they would be able to find anyone else alive. The child ghosts were nowhere to be seen and Yoshiki hoped that they weren't crazy yet again. He wasn't ready for another confrontation and highly doubted that he ever would be. The other ghosts didn't seem to mind them and let them wandering around in peace. One or two of them even followed their group for awhile, like he or she was curious what were they doing.

"I can't still wrap my mind around that," Yoshiki shook his head with a groan, while he was trying to piece loose pages together. Finding them was one thing – and actually pretty easy, mostly clean, pink paper stood out in this place like nothing else – but putting the torn pieces together was a whole new story. "Why somebody decided to tear random pages of her diary just to hide them in random places?"

"Because that somebody didn't want us to find it?" Ran proposed with a snicker on her face.

"Then he could do his job better," he grunted. "The only difficult part so to actually put them in the right order!"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Azusa smiled and sat next to him. "You see, Ran is partially right. Whoever tore this diary up didn't want anyone to piece it together."

"Where's the "but" in there?"

"Ghosts usually do want to be freed and to pass on," she continued. "Because of that, sometimes their subconscious mind works against them and help the people they are messing with. Like keeping them from killing us, or completely destroying the evidence of what happened here, so we wouldn't have a chance at appeasing them."

"Here they are pretty set up on murdering everything," Yoshiki grimaced. "But that's because of the aura of this place, right? Yuki said something like that - the misery and suffering in this place was driving all of the children ghost insane."

"Uh-huh," Azusa nodded. "Exactly! I believe it's the same with this diary!"

Helpful or not, the information they found in the notes Naho left behind, were not of the pleasant sort. Apparently, the teenage writer was looking for something to boost up her mentor's reputation and actually found something pretty dangerous. Then she found out about the killing charm and her teacher decided to not take her onto a trip to the school of the damned. So Naho did the most terrible thing anyone could possibly think of. At least according to her notes.

"This is just sick!" Yoshiki grit his teeth. It took all of his self-restrain to just not threw the whole carefully pieced together thing away. He felt dirty, like even touching the diary was leaving stains on his skin.

"Yeah," Ran nodded. "That's a really awful thing to do."

"Well," Azusa sighed. "At least now we know more."

"And how the real ritual is supposed to work," Yoshiki bitterly added.

"Yes," Azusa nodded. "There is a chance that if we do it once more, this time correctly..."

"Worth a shot," he shrugged. "But I need to meet up with my friends. And find Ms. Yui, she has to be somewhere."

"You sure she's... you know, alive?" Ran chewed on her lip.

"Yeah!" Yoshiki answered immediately. "She's too awesome to just drop dead like that!"

"Then let's go search for her!" Azusa said with a warm smile and stood up. Then she turned around and reached towards him, lending him a hand and helping to stand up. "Come on!"

He gladly accepted the help, then handed over the diary. She was much better at this supernatural stuff and there was a possibility she could find something while they were on their way.

For a short moment Yoshiki considering trying to call Ms. Yui, but decided against it. With the ghosts once again being hostile and Yoshikazu lurking around, making too much noise was a bad idea. They slowly started to walking once again, this time just opening the doors that could be opened and quickly looking inside before moving forward. Finally, in the library – or the reference room, there were books inside and Yoshiki never cared much for these, so whatever – they found someone, though it definitely wasn't a person they were looking for.

Saenoki Naho was standing facing the bookshelves, completely ignoring the creaking noise the doors made when Yoshiki pulled them apart and their surprised gasps. She was just standing there, picking up books at random and skimming through them, like they weren't there.

"Hey!" Yoshiki shouted. "You! Saenoki! We know what you have done!"

She stopped for a moment, then carefully put the book bad on its place. Only after that she turned towards them, her expression blank as usual. Once again, her body looked just fine. No stains of blood, no shreds on her clothes, no signs of any sort of struggle. Even her skin seemed to be perfectly healthy.

"And?" Naho asked, looking at him with these dead eyes of hers.

"You... don't even care?" Yoshiki stuttered. "Because of you so many people... and you don't care at all?"

"Well," she said without even a shrug. Like she was commenting on weather. "They are all dead, same as I. Why should I care?"

"That's an awful thing to say!" Azusa gasped.

Naho slightly raised an eyebrow when she looked at the blonde, then her gaze wandered back to Yoshiki.

"It seems that you decided to switch girfriends," Naho said. "You've decided that you don't like that crybaby? Or just decided to switch to one that actually looks like a woman?"

"How dare you-!"

"What?" Naho shrugged. "She was stupid. You have to be, trusting in stuff you find on the internet, without checking if the information is legit."

Before Yoshiki opened his mouth to argue back, Ran moved forward, shaking with fury.

"You stupid cow!" she growled. "You murderer!"

"So?" She just tilted her head at the accusations, like it was something amusing to hear. "All I care about is my dearest Kibiki. And since he needed a lot of material for his research..." she shrugged again. "I gave it to him."

Ran suddenly started laughing.

"What?" Naho furrowed her brow, truly reacting for the first time. "What is so funny about it? Or maybe it is darkening, already swallowing you?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Ran shook her head. "That guy you're looking for all around the place? You've already found him once. I don't think he really enjoyed that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Recognize this?" Ran asked. She took the diary from Azusa's hands and waved it in front of the dead girls face. "Pretty interesting things inside. How you posted the wrong Charm on the net, how you tricked your friend into following your teacher here... And you found him, you know. It's not exactly written in here, but the imprint left by emotions is more than enough."

Naho stood there, staring at her, unmoving and statue-like and Ran was continuing her rant, getting louder and louder with every word.

Suddenly, Naho opened her mouth. "Give it back," she demanded in a hoarse voice.

"Why?" Ran snickered. "Are you curious?"

"Give it back," Naho repeated. Her dead eyes widened slightly, making her looks even more creepy than before.

Yoshiki stepped forward, so both of the girls were behind him, even if the dead occultist was creeping him out.

"Hand it over," he said.

"But!"

"Just do it!"

Ran listened and, with a lot of hesitation, she handed the diary over.

"You want that?" Yoshiki waved with the little pink book.

"Give. It. Back!"

"Okay," he said and tossed it in her direction.

"Hey!" Ran protested, grabbing his shoulder. "Why the hell did you-!"

Before she managed to finish, Naho suddenly bend in half, fingers still locked on the diary, and started screaming. It was an unpleasant, low growl instead of high-pitched shriek one would expect to come from a girl's mouths and it was getting louder and louder.

Yoshiki stepped back, startled by the noise, pushing the girl further away from the medium.

Knees bend under Naho, who dropped on the floor with a thud. She was holding her head with both of her hands, fingers wrapped around her hair and pulling hard. The growl deepened even more only to be suddenly cut by an unpleasant, gurgling noise. A think, black mist started to coming out of her nose and mouth. Yoshiki almost expected to hear a splattering noise, but that never came. Instead, more and more mist was coming out, wrapping itself around Naho's body and floating around her. Her arms were twisting and shaking, back was bend in unnatural manner and her legs seemed to be completely jointless by this point, tapping into the wooden boards under her in a frantic rhythm.

Then, suddenly, it all ended. Naho just vanished in a blink of an eye and the darkness followed.

They stood there, just staring at the point where dead girl was standing a mere seconds ago, trying to wrap their minds around what had just happened in front of their very eyes.

Yoshiki opened his mouth, but then he closed them, unable to find the right words, not even a right question to ask. He could be afraid of the fact that the answer might actually come to him. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his breath steady and slowly looked around – while Naho was utterly crazy, she was still investigating the Heavenly Host, so maybe there was something they could use…?

The prize was there, looking at him from one of the shelves, a small marble statue of red, vaguely human–shaped blob, in the exact same size of the white one he received from Yuki. He snatched the atrocious item before it started to looks like a bad idea.

It might have been, because the ground started to shake yet again. They all dropped onto the floor, covering their heads from books falling down from the shelves and praying that the unstable bookcases were not going to follow and crash into the ground. There were many of them in this room, all of them old and heavy and they were just humans, easy to break and hurt.

Then, that too, stopped. Sudden stillness felt unreal, especially with the roar of protesting wood still vibrating through the air and glass in the windows.

"How did you know?" Ran demanded, quickly standing up and putting herself back together. "How did you know it would make her go away?"

"To tell the truth..." Yoshiki bit his lip. "I didn't. I just... look, she clearly didn't remember it. And I wanted her to. She brought so many people in here, knowing exactly what was awaiting and among them there was actually a person or two she cared about. I... It might just seem petty, but I wanted her to hurt."

He looked at the place, where Naho was standing not that long ago and the trashed bookshelves. "For what she's done it won't be enough, not even close. But, to make her feel, just something... Damn it, I'm just a nasty person and it was the only way to make her hurt, since she is already dead."

"I don't believe you're an evil person," Azusa gently wrapped her hands around his arm. "It was hers. The diary and the pain. Sooner or later, she would've found it."

"I guess we don't need it anyway," Ran shrugged. "Since we already read through the whole thing enough times to memorize bits and pieces."

They decided to see if they could meet up with Mochida and the girls first. Yoshiki hoped, that the nasty shake would be enough for Satoshi to want check out on him. Besides, the time until the next meeting by the hole in the floor was almost up anyway. Azusa and Ran agreed to follow him, since it was safer in a group than wandering alone and learning something from the other group could be helpful too.

"I hoped we would find you here!" Satoshi smiled brightly. "It was shaking really badly!"

"I might have pissed off a dead medium," Yoshiki grimaced.

"You did what?" Nakashima gasped. "Then curiously eyed the unfamiliar girls. "Well, guess you made some new friends too."

Yoshiki smiled back at her, glad for the slight tease. She was doing better than before and doing better was always a good news.

"Hi," Ran waved at them and then introduced herself and her 'wifey', while Yoshiki handed over the second statue.

"The important thing is, we might have a way to get back. And we know why the charm failed," Azusa said, after both groups were introduced to each other.

"Really?" Nakashima gasped.

The next few minutes Yoshiki spend on explaining what Naho did and why, with Azusa aiding him when he was getting lost in the details.

"So..." Yuka blinked. "We can just walk out of here? Like right now?"

"I doubt it is going to be that easy," Azusa shook her head. "The ritual, even done in the correct way is still all about asking Sachiko herself for aid. I don't think in her current stare she would be willing to help us."

"Yeah," Naomi grimaced. "More like she would screw us even more."

"But how we are to appeal to humanity of someone like that?" Yuka shook her head. "It's just...!"

"All ghosts wants to pass on," Azusa said. "Even if they are terribly aggressive, the clues are still there, they are compulsed to leave them."

"So we just have to find the answers," Satoshi sighed. "And how exactly she managed to look exactly the same in the fifties and twenty years after that."

"What are you talking about?" Yoshiki frowned.

Satoshi quickly explained about notes of Kou Kibiki and the newspaper clipping about a lost girl and her mother accidental death and how the photo looked exactly like the sole survivor of the murder that took place shortly before the Heavenly Host was closed.

"Huh," Azusa blinked. "That actually makes sense."

"How?"

"She was already dead by then. She didn't just disappear the day the school nurse was found dead," Azusa shook her head. "She died too and was haunting this place for twenty years."

"That... that's just awful!" Yuka gasped.

"You sure?" Yoshiki looked at Azusa. "I mean, the police made a photo of her and all..."

"Yes, that is odd," the girl nodded. "But it's also the only logical explanation to all of this."

"So, let's go look for the clues!" Satoshi smiled. "I think we saw two pedestals by the wall somewhere, we might try out if there is anything about these creepy statues."

"Yeah," Nakashima nodded. "We need to find Ms. Yui too..."

"Have you seen Morishique? Last time I saw him, he was on his own."

When Both Satoshi and Naomi grimaced, Yoshiki knew they had bad news.

"We found his phone," Mochida reluctantly started to explain. "He was making photos of...well, bodies. Trying to document them, I think, you know, to show to the police or something. there was also a video. Pushed a wrong button, maybe... Anyhow, he discovered what happened to Mayu, and since he took the photo of her as well," he was stuttering more and more while he was explaining. "It was hard to see what was going on, but there was a sound of breaking glass, so we think that he just... jumped."

Yoshiki covered his face with both of his hand with a painful groan.

"I'm sorry," Azusa put her hand on his shoulder.

"Let's just go," he sighed. "God, let's just go and find Ms. Yui and let's be done with it!"

He could guess that making a photo of the corpse was not the only thing that pushed Morishugue over the edge. Considering how much blood was on his hands, when he handed them a bag that was supposed to be hidden in that place...

Yoshiki shook his head. It definitely wasn't something he wanted to wonder about. Not now, when there was so many things to do, things that needed him to keep the clarity of mind. Just for a little while longer, just until it all ends and then he will have all the time in the world to curl up and cry.

"Let's go," he said. "We're going to look for something more about the dead nurse and maybe we will find Ms. Yui. She has to be somewhere!"

Once again, they parted their ways and Yoshiki couldn't help himself, but to turn around and look at his friends up until they disappeared around the corner.

"Are you alright?" Ran nudged him in the side.

"No, I...ah!" Yoshiki groaned. "That's a stupid question, you know?"

"Yeah," she grimaced. "Sorry about that. I can't even imagine... You know what? No. I'm not going to talk about that. Tell me something about that teacher of yours instead. Or about the girl you managed to get out of here."

"They are nice, I guess?" He muttered, unsure what she was expecting to hear from him.

Ms. Yui was... definitely a surprise. He fully expected teachers to not like him very much. With Tsubota as the gossip center of the adult part of the school, it was hard not to and a new teacher was supposed to listen to her elders, since they knew what they were doing.

However Ms. Yui liked to decide for herself what a person was like. She didn't care about his hair, scolded him when she heard about smoking and then praised him for quitting. She was trying to steal his dishes at the Homeroom classes and kept forgetting to take her shopping out of the purse, so the class cabinet was filled with cans of food for her cat. Yoshiki ended up manipulated in helping her bring all that home after the exams.

"Sounds like a pretty cool teacher," Ren said with a smile.

"Yeah," he sighed. "I guess so." He was about to ask the girls about their school, but then, he caught a glimpse of something that wasn't supposed to be there.

Yoshiki stopped and turned, but whatever he saw, it wasn't just an optical illusion. There was a middle-aged man in an old-fashioned suit walking up the stairs, his huge frame filling the space almost completely.

"The hell?" he gasped, but the odd ghost disappeared before Yoshiki decided if it was good idea to try catch up to him.

"That's odd," Azusa frowned. "He looked... different."

And was walking towards the stairs again. He hadn't the strange, bluish shine to him like all the others ghosts around the place. Instead, he looked more like an old photo, sepia-colored, slightly gritty and watered down.

"Is he like... looped, or something?" Ran blinked.

"He seems to be repeating some moment of his life," Azusa muttered. "It definitely is important, if it got imprinted so strongly..."

"Should we follow him?"

"Well, it's not like he can see us."

The spectre led them up the stairs and then across the corridor, just to walk down the stairs once again and disappearing in front of the doors to the basement.

"And here the journey ends," Yoshiki grimaced. "There's no way to get through these doors."

"Maybe there is another way downstairs?" Ran muttered.

"You think this is important?"

"Well, the nurse died, because she fell down the stairs. Seeing somebody dying... it changes a person."

Yoshiki decided to not to think about it. He saw so many dead bodies he lost count a long time ago.

They wandered around the ever-changing school some more, before they found another odd looking room. It was huge, but completely empty.

"It's just me, or there really is a pentagram on the floor?" Ran muttered, staring at the carefully detailed, but disturbing drawing on the floor.

"Yup," Azusa nodded.

"Think it is going to be dangerous?"

"Everything here is dangerous," Yoshiki winkled his nose. "And since the room is empty anyways..."

"Yeah, no reason to walk in there," Azusa sighed. "I'm quite curious about what it is supposed to do, but guess you're right. Let's not waste time."

They were about to move forward, when they heard footsteps, coming from right behind the recently closed doors.

"What the...?" Ran frowned.

"Sounds like someone is walking around in heels."

Yoshiki felt, like his heart skipped a beat. Was it possible...? Ms. Yui was always wearing heels. They weren't the highest, barely two inches or something like that, but still... it sounded too good to be true.

"Hello...?" he reluctantly called, his voice breaking a little. "Is someone in there?"

"...Kishinuma?"

He gasped. By all means, it should be just another trick of this cursed place, a new way to screw with his mind. But at this very moment, he didn't care at all. He pushed the doors open, because he just had to know for sure.

The first thing he noticed, was a wide stain of blood covering almost all of the sleeve of her pink sweater. But it was Ms. Yui and she was staring at him with the same sense of wonder he felt.

Then the floor opened under her.

Yoshiki threw himself forward, knowing perfectly well that no matter what, he won't be quick enough to catch her.

Somehow, Ms. Yui managed to grab something. A part of uneven, wooden board. But there was just a darkness under her and nothing else to grab onto.

"Crap! Hold on!" Yoshiki couldn't quite reach her even if he was already on the floor, bending over the edge. He needed to get closer.

"Kishinuma, stop!" Ms. Yui warned him. "You're going to fall too!"

"Don't care!"

He moved closer, still trying to reach down.

"I'm holding you!" Azusa knelt next to him and wrapped her hands around his waist.

With her weight holding him down, he could risk lowering himself a bit more, just enough for his fingers to finally wrap around Ms. Yui's wrist.

"Gotcha!" he grinned.

But pulling her up, using only one hand was a whole another story.

"Kishinuma, you don't need to..."

"Oh, just try to grab me with your other hand!" he groaned, before she said another stupid thing.

With a painful groan, she moved her wounded hand and slowly raised it towards him. Their fingers meet for a moment, but her hand was sleek with blood and Yoshiki couldn't get a good grip.

Next to him, Ran changed position a little, now pretty much sitting on his right tight. She grabbed his hand and helped him pull Ms. Yui enough to get a hold on her other hand.

"Okay!" she grinned. "Now pull!"

It was painful, to put all of his strength into it and Yoshiki barely could imagine how the teacher felt, with her wounded hand manhandled like that. But she got close enough to the edge for Azusa to grab her by the back of her sweater and help pulling too.

Then it was over. Ms. Yui was safely sitting on the ground beside him, while Yoshiki was trying to force himself to stay conscious. Hanging with his head down like that caused his wound to open and he felt blood travelling down his neck.

"Are you okay?" Was the first thing Ms. Yui asked.

Yoshiki couldn't help himself, but laughed.

"Asking that sort of a question looking like that," he shook his head, still chuckling.

"Yeah," Ms. Yui smiled back. "You know, I was about to start talking about the gravity of the situation..."

That broke something inside him. No matter how hard Yoshiki tried, he just couldn't stop laughing, even after his eyes starter to water.

"I'm sorry," Ms. Yui sighed. "That was a really bad joke, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," he nodded and wiped his eyes. "You have no idea how long we were searching for you."

"What happened to Shinozaki?"

"Don't worry, she's safe," Yoshiki quickly said. "Really."

"We should do something about these wounds," Azusa murmured. "Um, would you please turn around?"

"Huh?" Yoshiki blinked.

"I don't know if you have noticed or not," Ran rolled her eyes. "But your teacher is a girl. And to let us look at her back, she needs to take her shirt off."

"Oh!" he gasped and immediately moved to face the other direction, feeling like his face was on fire.

Both girls and Ms. Yui only giggled, which caused him to feel even more embarrassed.

"I think I'm going to use what's left of this sweater as a bandage," Azusa murmured. "Our clothes... were around I guess, There could be nasty things on them. Infection is the last thing we want in a situation like this."

They talked for awhile in small voices, exchanging their stories, while Yoshiki concentrated of looking around. To bump into Yoshikazu or one of the angry ghost just after succeeding in saving someone... it would be exact the thing he would expect from this school.

**A/N:** I probably shouldn't post so soon, but darn, I just want to share this story, or blab about all the possibilities that come with shifting the fates of people from Kisaragi... Or I'm just a prima-donna and I want the attention :P  
>(and someone to point out my bad grammar, I'm aware I'm not too good. Can't do better without somebody to tell me what I do wrong)<p>

Anyhow, at first I was thinking about having Yoshiki smack Naho with the Ramayana instead of just tossing over the diary. There was some plausible explanation to it, but in the end I went meh on the whole idea - waay to complicated for him to actually pull that out. Not to mention, what in the world would that sort of stuff do in the Heavenly Host in the first place?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Hello again! I was considering switching this story for M instead of T, but in the end I went "meh". I really don't think I was graphic enough for M. Though, if you think otherwise, please, notify me.  
>Also - I'm very glad for all the reviews, views and follows! I'm aware of the fact that my English in not the greatest thing on the block, so if you notice something awry - or if you have enough time to beta (hint, hint) - do not be afraid of notifying me either. My stories are not precious babies, they are my learning tools and products.<p>

**Chapter 4**  
><strong>The Long Way Back Home<strong>

They decided to let Ms. Yui rest before continuing their search for the way down. Yoshiki didn't want to admit it, but he needed a bit of time down too, with his head starting to be a real issue. After they were done, and Ms. Yui's hand safely tied to her torso, Ran helped him to rewrap the dressing Ayumi put there in the first place, but it was still pretty uncomfortable.

"Hey, Knight, do you think it would be a good idea to exchange phone numbers?"

"Knight?" Yoshiki blinked.

"Well, since your name is..." Azusa started.

"That's not how you write it," he mumbled.

"A shame," the girl sighed with disappointment. "It would fit you perfectly."

"If you say so," Yoshiki just shrugged. A name was just a name, after all. "And it's a good idea with the phones. When this is all over, we will be back where we started, right? I would like to know that you two are safe and sound."

It would really suck, to walk out of this nightmarish place just to spend the next days - probably even weeks - worrying over the girls. Yoshiki honestly couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to not know. He barely knew them and was aware of the fact that any other situation they would pass each other on the street without passing even a glance. But here, they were the only people alive he actually meet. There was no other choice but to form some sort of attachment.

Yoshiki eagerly copied their phone numbers and then checked two times if the number was really saved in the phone memory. Ran just snorted at his antics and acted like she hadn't noticed her friend doing exactly the same thing.

"Ms. Yui?" Yoshiki asked carefully, after he finally decided his phone wasn't doing anything suspicious. "Do you think you're fine enough to walk?"

"I have to be, don't I?" she chuckled, then winced with pain. Apparently at this point even laughter was painful for her.

"We can wait some more," he proposed, looking around. It was still more or less peaceful in their corner. Besides, he could only vaguely image what was wrong with her shoulder and that wasn't a pleasant image at all.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Ms. Yui said with a grimace. "The girls did a good job, but I lost a lot of blood. The sooner we get out of this place..."

Yoshiki nodded. "That's no reason to push yourself to hard. I don't want you to faint, or something."

She had a point. Losing a lot of blood - and still slightly bleeding, probably - was a very bad thing to happen to someone in this place. But they have no way to tell how much more time it will take to leave this cursed place. If Ms. Yui push herself to hard, got hurt even slightly more... It would just end horribly.

"I'm going to be just fine," Ms. Yui said, forcing herself to smile, like she was reading in his mind. "And now get up, we have to keep moving. I want to see Mochida and Nakashima with my own eyes."

Yoshiki carefully helped her to stand up and then they were walking again.

Their path wasn't a very long one. Soon, they once again saw the Headmaster of the Heavenly Host walking through the corridors, his heavy steps not making a slightest sound. There was an odd expression on his face; his eyes opened slightly too wide, a muscle on his tense face was pulsing, while the man seemed to be trying to fight off the urge to either grin widely or start screaming. He was carrying a shovel, too. Not a huge gardening one, more like the ones of a size of a hatchet. Still, it was rather odd, especially while the man was wearing old-fashioned, but expensive-looking suit.

The Headmaster stopped right in front of the incinerator, then he bend over and crawled right into the hungry mouth of the incinerator.

"What the hell?!" Yoshiki gasped, staring at the place, where the huge dead man disappeared. It was a huge incinerator, way to big for anything people usually installed at school or anywhere else, to tell the truth.

"I do agree, that was weird," Ran muttered, but walked towards the installation anyway. Bending her knees to see a little better, she looked right into the mouths of the metal behemoth.

"It kinda looks like it actually could lead someplace," she murmured after a short moment of staring into the darkness inside.

"Really?" Azusa blinked and joined her friend in trying to see something in the incinerator. "Think we should follow?"

"Just why crawling down there sounds like a sane idea?!" Yoshiki groaned. "Seriously, in this place... It's like asking for it!"

"That's the only way what's left," Ran said with a shrug. "Besides, as wifey said, the ghosts want to be dealt with. This one is leading us somewhere."

"They might want to be appeased, but they are also set pretty hard on murdering us," Yoshiki rolled his eyes. "Don't know about you, but I think dying inside of this thing wouldn't be the best way to end my life."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

He didn't.

Instead, Yoshiki looked at Ms. Yui with worry. Walking was one thing, but getting inside something as dirty as that thing and actually moving on all four? That was just insane!

"I can wait for you," Ms. Yui said, noticing his gaze.

"Oh, no way!" Yoshiki instantly protested. "I'm not going to leave you alone. Not a chance!"

Wherever the incinerator lead, it looked like an one-way path. He was not going to split with Ms. Yui, not after searching for her for so long. He couldn't just turn his backs on her, not ever. And she was in such bad shape, too. If something decided to attack her...

"Well, if someone so huge managed to get in, you have to imagine that there is some space in there," Ran murmured.

"Your point is?"

"I think both me and Ms. Yui can more or less fit next to each other," she explained. "It definitely won't be comfortable at all, but she will be able to use me to support herself."

"I still don't like the idea, " Yoshiki groaned.

"I don't like it either," Ms. Yui sighed. "But I think we're out of options."

"Yeah," Azusa nodded. "We searched the whole place and more than once."

"Well," he grunted. "No other way than forward, I guess?"

It still was a terrible idea and wasn't looking any better when they were crawling through dirty, dark space, that could burst into fiery blaze at any second. Yoshiki definitely wouldn't call it to be a humbling experience. It was more like a last desperate call for a psychiatric help.

The situation got even worse, when the ridiculously long tunnel suddenly ended, dropping them in the middle of a room filled with dead bodies. On the pile of dead bodies, to be exact, but Yoshiki stood up as soon as possible, not wanting to even think about the soft, but oddly squishy landing.

The stench of rotten meat, excrements and fear was unimaginably strong and the air felt like it was sticking to their skin and clothes, not to mention, his lungs. Yoshiki was pretty sure that he could taste it too; it was vile and oily, impossible to forget.

"Ms. Yui?" he asked. "Everyone?"

"I'm fine," the teacher answered and then coughed. She was sickly pale and was sweating bullets, but she actually managed to get all the way here. He helped her to get out of the tunnel, while Ran was securing her from the back as much as she could. "But let's find the exit. It starts to look like a bad idea."

"Starts?" Yoshiki raised his eyebrows.

Behind them, there was a pool filled with more dead bodies, floating in the murky, dark fluid. He was sure that reeked even more than the rotting, disfigured bodies on the ground, but at this point he was unable to smell anything.

Turning away from the basin, Yoshiki carefully moved forwards, trying to not step on any of the limbs. Avoiding all other bodily parts was impossible. He couldn't keep himself from shivering, when his foot found something particularly squishy that made a wet sound when he moved his leg away. Luckily, it was too dark to tell what it was.

After several steps he started to worry that there was no way out and they walked right into the slow and miserable death, when he finally found doors.

"Please," he murmured under his breath, not sure who was he praying to. "Just please, let it be open!"

It was.

The corridor outside had a very low ceiling and bare, concrete walls. There was a row with lamps on the walls and some of them were even working, filling the place with weak light. It looked like an unfinished bunker, dirty and with wires crawling along the pathways.

"That's better," Ran said, passing by him to look around. Her hair were damp with sweat and were sticking to her forehead and her hairpin was gone, probably lost somewhere inside of the metal tunnels. Other than that, she seemed to be fine. "But still looks like a really bad idea."

"Oh, now you're saying this was stupid?!"

"I never said it wasn't" she protested. "Besides, this place is made with bad ideas. It's like the ultimate bad idea!"

At least, the mine, bomb shelter - whatever it was - wasn't as reeking as the room they just left. To tell the truth, the smell of mold and wet stone was actually pleasant compared to what they experienced up until this point. The air was cold enough for their breath to show and humid.

His clothes were still damp and now he felt almost like he was soaking again. And about to freeze.

His teeth were not the only one chattering, but he wasn't sure if it was a good thing. Ms. Yui looked very pale and there were noticeable dark shadows under her eyes. Her breathing was heavy too. The long way through the metal monster took a lot out of her.

Yoshiki considered stopping somewhere for a short while, but it seemed like a bad idea. It was just too cold and Ms. Yui lost too much blood; hypothermia was a real possibility.

At least the girls were looking just fine, even if their clothes were not white anymore; all that soot and ash they went through left a visible trace on their jackets and skirts, covering them in mismatched stains of grey and black.

"Let's look around for a bit, shall we?" Ran proposed, running fingers through her hair. The movement left a wide, dark smudge on her forehead.

Yoshiki looked and Ms. Yui and she nodded. Soon, they were walking through a claustrophobic corridor with low ceiling, with their steps echoing through empty spaces. It was oddly disconnecting. Or maybe it was because of the dim reddish light filling the corridors. Because of that everything seemed to be even darker and it was hard to tell apart the colors. All that was just creepy and off putting and felt much more like walking on a stage of some horror movie than an actual reality.

At some point, the corridor started to sound... oddly. It was still bouncing the sound of footsteps, even if their whole group stopped walking for a moment.

"Is this just me," Ran whispered as quiet as it was possible. "Or we are not alone anymore?"

"It could be another echo from other Closet Space," Azusa murmured back, her brow frowned in through. "They were destroyed for the time, but the sudden connection could cause some unusual effects."

As far as Yoshiki understood the situation, she was referring to the fact that up until he and Ayumi started to appeasing the child ghosts, there were many different Closet Spaces. Inside of the reality of the Heavenly Host, the time wasn't working like it was supposed to either. Heavenly Host was existing in its ghostly form for more than thirty years and therefore it was sending its newest victims to the random spots in school corridors and time. It was really hard to comprehend, but there was no other explanation; they all had seen bodies wearing perfectly modern, plastic ID's that seemed to be dead for over twenty years, lying next to a corpse of a person who barely stopped breathing and was wearing the exact same uniform.

It was also a reason why nobody was able to respond to the message he and Ayumi left in the classroom - they simply were in the furthest point of time, so the writing wasn't existing yet for Nakashima and all the others.

After appeasing the ghosts, all of the Closed Spaces were molded together into one, thirty years of time suddenly were brought together... it just had to have some odd effects on the whole structure.

They waited, like a bunch of scared rabbits that smelled a predator nearby, afraid of guessing what could travel through these dark corridors.

"Think we should...?" Ran asked, gesturing towards the direction where they came from. The steps were approaching and it sounded like it was more than just one person.

Yoshiki licked his lips. It would be a safe thing to do, to just turn around and hide, waiting out whatever was going on. On the other hand, if they were able to hear footsteps even from this far it would be logical for the other group to be able to notice their movement too. In the worst case, locking themselves back in the reeking hidey-hole filled with dead bodies would turn into a death-trap.

"Bad idea," he said. "But be ready to run."

The girls and Ms. Yui nodded. And so, they waited, tense and expecting the worst to happen at any minute.

Then Satoshi walked from around the corner, followed by his little sister and slightly limping Nakashima. It was so unexpected for both of the groups to bump into each other just like that, they all stopped dead in their tracks, just staring at each other with disbelief.

"It's soo good to see you!" Yoshiki pulled him close and hugged, breaking the stillness of the moment. Satoshi gasped with a surprise, but returned the hug. To tell the truth, Yoshiki never liked to touch people very much. It always felt just awkward or plain unpleasant and Satoshi knew that pretty well.

Now however, the warmth of other human being was actually a very comforting experience. Being able to touch, to tell for sure that Satoshi was alive and alright and that they were finally standing in the same place without a huge hole in the ground separating them... it was amazing.

"Ms. Yui!" Nakashima gasped. "Are you... that would be a stupid question, wouldn't it?"

"Don't worry about that," the teacher only smiled.

"It's good to know everyone is well," Azusa said gently.

"How did you get here anyway?" Ran asked, tilting her head to the side.

"There was a ladder in the custodian closet... actually, a whole secret room," Naomi explained.

"What? You get a ladder, while we had to crawl through a freaking incinerator?!" Yoshiki groaned, finally pushing Satoshi away. Ironically, he unfairness of the situation helped him pull his wits back together.

"I-incinerator?!"

"Don't even ask," Yoshiki shook his head. "Anyhow, have you found anything...?"

"Lots of odd stuff," Satoshi admitted, instantly knowing what his friend was talking about. "A plushie looks like a good shot at this appeasing stuff, she is like what, seven? Anyhow, there was also the last tape of Kou Kibiki and-"

"You know what? I don't want to hear that. You have the best people skills anyway, you do the talking!"

"Hey!" Satoshi protested.

"If I can add something..." Azusa raised her hand a little, to catch their attention.

"Ah, sure!" Nakashima gasped. "You are like a supernatural researcher, right?"

"Something like that, I guess," Azusa lowered her gaze. "I'm not a big shot like Naho and I'm not exactly active in the field..."

"But you still know more than anybody else," Yoshiki finished from her. "So if you have something to tell us, just do it."

The girl nodded. They spend a few minutes on looking for a corner to sit down; they all wanted to have at least one way to run away and a decent view at what could be moving from the opposite direction. The niche they stopped at wasn't the most comfortable part of the underground bunker. It was as cold and wet as anywhere else. Too much time spend underground and hypothermia setting in would be a real possibility.

But for this moment, they could use a moment to breathe. The cold stone helped for the throbbing pain of Yoshiki's head.

"I think we should use the moment and actually plan how to appease Sachiko before heading anymore further," Azusa said, sitting next to him. "We will have only one shot at this and if we fail..."

"Which we won't," Satoshi said stubbornly. "But you're right, we should plan. Improvising can take us only that far."

"Yuki said we should appeal to her humanity," Yoshiki said. "So the plushie you have mentioned... it might work."

"We found something much more disturbing," Satoshi added with a grimace. "We managed to get into the Principal's office, and in his desk..."

"Let me guess, a tongue?"

"Right," Satoshi nodded and then shuddered.

"Huh," Azusa blinked. "That's interesting."

"No, it's just plain disturbing," Yoshiki cut out. The first time he saw something like that, he screamed like a little girl and landed on his butt. Even Shinozaki, who was scared out of her wits since they woke up in this hellish dimension reacted much better. Now, while he was not to freak out anymore, he still preferred to not to think too much about cutting out tongues. Or any other parts of the body.

"No, think about it!" she protested. "Sachiko was pretty much recreating what had happened to her!"

"We're back at the thing about ghosts wanting to be exorcised into the afterlife?" Yoshiki eyed her. "That would be taking the hinting part way over the top."

"Yes," she sighed. "I guess you're right. There is definitely something odd about the whole thing, but for now... we should just concentrate on dealing with the issue at hand."

Satoshi nodded.

"We have also a few tapes Kibiki and his assistant created, but..." he grimaced. "I don't think these are going to be of any use to us at this point."

"She's seven and from fifties I don't think she even knows how a camera works," Ran deadpanned.

"The last thing was the diary from the Nurse's Office."

"You actually managed to move this stuff?" Yoshiki blinked in surprise.

"That was the thing the statues lead us to," Satoshi sighed. "And is the source of our knowledge about what exactly had happened to Sachiko and her mom."

"That's pretty sad," Azusa said upon skimming through the diary. "And disturbing. But these few moments of clarity... I think it might work to show her that even Yoshie don't want people to die anymore."

They talked over what arguments could work and which items to hand over to the ghost.

Nothing came out of the darkness to scare them off or get in their way. It was almost like Sachiko herself was daring them to try, clearing their path, like it was another of her crude, merciless jokes.

They all knew she was waiting at the end of the path, too. It was hard to not feel her presence in the air. It was menacing and plain nasty, heavy like the air just before the storm.

xxx

Ayumi didn't know when, but she had to fell asleep at some point. A loud thud woke her up so suddenly, she was still half-dazed and couldn't tell where she even was. All she knew was that she was cold, one of her hands hurt pretty badly and there was an awful taste inside of her mouth.

She looked around in confusion, not understanding why she was asleep on the cold floor in front of her classroom of all the possible places, wearing too big clothes, while there was completely dark outside. Hinoe was there too, which made the situation even weirder. Was there an earthquake or something and they were made to head to the shelter? But then, nobody would let them just hang out in the corridor like that… Then, the wave of memories flood her.

Ayumi stood up to fast and had to fought a dizzy spell, but she rushed towards the doors.

"Kishinuma?!" Ayumi cried, hitting their surface with her fist. "Are you there?"

There was more noise on the inside. Rushing, somebody seemed to be walking and there was a sound like a chair fell to the floor or something like that.

"Kishinuma?" Ayumi hit the doors again.

Hinoe was right by her side, her brow furrowed. She was observing the doors with wariness in her eyes, like she was expecting to see something bad walk out of the classroom. She was holding something hard enough for her knuckles to turn white.

Ayumi swallowed, suddenly not sure if she wanted to know what really was hiding behind the doors anymore. Was it really Kishinuma? Or maybe it was the little ghost, Yuki, that has returned, already overtaken by the madness of the Heavenly Host, ready to spread death and terror even further than before? Or something – someone – even worse?

Finally, there was a click of the lock and the doors opened.

There was no horror to stare in their faces. Instead, Mochida was standing there. He was dirty, there were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves didn't look quite right either – like somebody stole something from his gaze. But he was breathing and even a small smile blossomed on his lips, when he spotted her.

"Hi," he said in a hoarse voice.

Behind him, Ayumi noticed a spot of blue fabric – so there was Yuka and she was fine – and Nakashima, awkwardly trying to set a chair back by the desk, while trying not to put any weight at all on her bad leg. She could even hear Ms. Yui scolding the girl for worrying about making mess in a situation like that.

Then, finally, Ayumi spotted blond hair. Before she even knew what she was doing, Ayumi pushed Satoshi to the side and made a beeline straight to that awful, nasty cretin that dared to manhandle her.

"You!" she growled. Her hands pushed him hard like they were moving on their own. "How could you?!"

"Sorry," Kishinuma said with a small, awkward smile on his face.

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Ayumi didn't let him. She smacked him on the shoulder with her fist and then again, with her other hand.

"You asshole!" Ayumi choked on her own tears and smacked him again. "How could you?! How could you do that?!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Was all he had to say.

"Don't you know how scared I was?!"

"I'm really sorry, I just couldn't let you go back there."

He wasn't even paying attention to her beating the crap out of him, that blaster fool, Ayumi thought with fury. He should be angry, he really should. But the only reaction she got out of him was him saying that he was sorry with that awkward smile on his face.  
>One of the pushes or maybe a punch made him to step back and that caused a small ruckus. His movement caused one of the desks to be pushed back too and the heavy thing screeched horribly, the metal legs grating on the wooden floor.<p>

The unexpected noise caused Ayumi to actually stop and look around. In any other situation, it would be such an awkward position, everyone staring at her like she just went crazy. But today she had every right to be as mad as she wanted to be. Besides, Kishinuma deserved that, for risking his stupid life like that.

Then Ayumi's eyes found Hinoe, who wasn't even paying attention to her little temper–tantrum. Instead, the older Shinozaki was kneeling by a woman – Ms. Yui – her back blocking the view from where Kishinuma was standing. To tell the truth, everyone seemed to be more interested in what was going on there than with their Class–Rep acting raving mad.

Feeling a pang of curiosity and fear rising inside her stomach again, she moved to the side, so she could actually see. Ms. Yui was sitting ungraciously on the floor with a grimace of pain on her face, holding onto her shoulder. She was dirty too, her clothes covered in soot and… Ayumi gasped, when she noticed how much blood was on the young English teacher.

"We need to get you to the hospital," Satoshi was saying. "Call an ambulance, and now."

"Not here," Miss Yui protested, trying to not look like she was in pain. "You will get in trouble."

"So what?" Nakashima grunted. "You're bleeding really badly!"

"Not anymore," Miss Yui said, trying to reassure the girl.

"We can give you a ride," Hinoe said out loud.

"Oh!" Satoshi blinked, turning towards her, like he noticed her only now. "You're... Shinozaki's sister, aren't you?"

"Yes," she gave a small nod.

Then Hinoe and Satoshi carefully helped Ms. Yui to stand up. Even with them trying to be really delicate, a painful grunt still escaped teacher's lips. They waited for Ms. Yui to compose herself, before they slowly began to walk, first out of the classroom, then through the dim corridor.

The stairs were terrifying, but somehow they managed to get down without an accident and gladly welcomed the cold rain on the outside.

Then Kishinuma's phone started to ring, startling everyone.

"Seriously?!" Ayumi huffed at him.

"Sorry," he once again said with a embarrassed smile. "But I have to answer that."

"But now?"

"Important," he said shortly.

At least he walked to the side to talk instead of doing that right where he stood. Just who could call him in the middle of the night like that?

"We meet somebody else in there," Mochida explained in a soft voice. "Kishinuma exchanged phone numbers with them and they promised to check up with us after we leave."

There wasn't much time to exchange information. Miss Yui needed help and Hinoe wasn't going to leave Ayumi out of her sight anytime soon, so she found herself in the passenger seat of the car, hurrying to the hospital.

"What are you going to tell them?" Hinoe asked, looking at the teacher. "To explain your injuries?"

"Probably that I don't remember anything," she sighed. "Nobody would believe the truth anyway."

"Okay," Hinoe nodded. "We found you accidentally and you seemed like you were walking around for awhile, dazzled from the attack."

"Sounds good."

Ayumi grimaced, feeling bitterness in her mouth. They shouldn't create such lies just to explain an injury. It wasn't fair.

xxx

"You sure you're going to be okay?" Satoshi asked him with a worried frown.

They walked out of the school building soon enough after Shinozaki, her sister and Miss Yui and were about to part their ways. It was late at night, but the hand of the clock hadn't pointed at the twelve yet. Which was odd. They definitely have spend much more time in there than just six hours. It felt almost like a whole night and then a bunch of hours more, but the quick search on the internet proved that the clock at their classroom was correct.

The rain was still smashing at the ground with a full force, cold and unmerciful, but at least it was washing out the horrible smell off their clothes. The wind, however, and the thunders were no more. The world was unmercifully cold, but it felt oddly peaceful because of that, too.

"Yeah," Yoshiki waved his hand at Satoshi. "I don't need you walking me home. And I don't have people to scream at me when I get home. I'll be fine."

"That's what worries me," Mochida muttered. "You living alone, I mean. After all that..."

"Look," Yoshiki sighed. "If you want, I can send you message that I got home or something. And you can message me back about Nakashima."

He considered it for a few moments and finally nodded. "Sounds fine."

Yoshiki breathed out with relief when he finally was alone.

It wasn't that he didn't like Satoshi. He did, really. But after all the things he went through, he needed to be alone for a little while. He somehow managed to keep it all together while he was at that cursed place, but now he wanted to curl into a ball and go through his very own freaking out session.

Preferably in his own bathroom, under a hot shower.

He really needed that shower. He was freezing to the bone and probably there was an unholy stench of death and decay all over him, but his sense of smell was too numb to pick it out anymore. And wasn't that weird? To get so used to the smell of dead bodies to not notice it anymore?

Yoshiki forced himself to swallow a yelp that was about to escape his mind.

Not now, he said to himself. Maybe even he did that out loud, but he hadn't noticed. He didn't really care.

"Just a few more minutes," he kept repeating.

He had to walk all the distance from school to his shoebox of an apartment, because it was way too late for any bus to still heading anywhere. But he didn't mind it. He actually didn't even notice when he appeared in front of his doors.

He dropped the keys two times before he managed to open them. And bending over to pick them up was the worst thing he experienced. Like his body suddenly remembered that it was horribly manhandled and smashed over the head with a sledge hammer of all things possible. His hands were sweaty and shaking so much that he could barely hold the key. Fitting it into the lock, when his vision was blurry, with blobs of random colors floating before his eyes like big, lazy clouds, just for the whole thing to turn into dark shades of grey the next second.

Yoshiki cursed, but after another moment of struggling, he finally managed to open his doors. He walked in on shaky legs, his knees oddly weak under him and just tossed the key somewhere on the floor. His bag followed, dropping down with a heavy thud.

Then he made another mistake; feeling too unsteady to just kick his shoes off, Yoshiki knelt down to take them off like a decent human being. His head didn't like the sudden movement at all. He had to crawl to the bathroom and then retched furiously but barely anything came out of his stomach. He probably vomited sometime before, but he couldn't recall it.

When Yoshiki finally calmed down, he slowly stripped, carefully inspecting his clothes.

There was no way to save his trousers. There were too many tears in the material and the blood here and there managed to dry. Funny, considering how damp they still were. He doubted that there was a way for his jacket to survive either. While it wasn't as torn as the trousers, it was still dirty.

But his white shirt and t-shirt managed to survive mostly unscratched – aside from the results of Ayumi's assault. A thoughtful wash or five, to get rid of the smell and they should be still of use for him.

Taking off the clothes gave him a ridiculous feel of relief. But the initial hit of the warm water when Yoshiki walked under the shower happened to be actually painful. The water felt burning hot against his skin and all of cuts of scratches instantly protested.

Yoshiki groaned, feeling another wave of nausea overwhelming him.

"I just can't have nice things, can I?" he muttered to himself, trying to make the world stop spinning around. Then, with a resigned sigh, Yoshiki turned the water a few degrees colder, because he barely could breathe anymore.

It made being conscious a little bit better, but Yoshiki still was pissed. He really was waiting for the warm comfort that a hot bath would give to him, but the universe really seemed to hate one Yoshiki Kishinuma.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**  
><strong>Secrets And Bruises<strong>

The next day wasn't any better.

Yoshiki woke up too late and the splitting headache was still there. He barely could even think about food without choking. The last one wasn't too much of a problem; that wouldn't be the first time Yoshiki started a day without any food. he was more worried about being late to school. Which sounded quite ridiculous. But he promised Shinozaki that he would be there. Making her even more pissed at him - or worried – would be a bad thing.

Getting ready for school took him much longer than it usually did. Getting to the school took more time too; he missed his usual bus and had to walk to the next stop, if he didn't want to sit at the bus stop for the next hour.

"Why did you do that?" was the first thing Shinozaki said when she spotted him. "You're late!"

"Well, duh," Yoshiki shrugged, really not in the mood to argue about anything. All he wanted was to sit down in his chair and breathe. Preferably far away from the girl, which wasn't that odd. Her voice did travel and right now she was talking loudly enough for it to be painful.

But Ayumi had another plans for today.

"Honestly," she continued angrily. "I asked you to show up today, just to make sure everything is okay and what did you do?"

"Sorry," he muttered, fighting with the need to cover his ears. That would cause her to start screeching even more and Yoshiki was afraid that anything more intense than that and he would start crying. "I tried but I woke up too late."

"Seriously? That's all you have to say?" Shinozaki shook her head. "Do you have any idea, how I felt when you didn't show up in the morning? And then a second lesson started and still not a sign of you?"

"Sorry," he sighed again and sat down heavily. "I just don't feel too well today."

"Oh!" her eyes widened. The change in her body language was instant. She even covered her mouth like she was upset and her brow furrowed with worry. "A-are you sick?"

"Just a bit dizzy," Yoshiki smiled and waved hand. He welcomed the change for weaker, more unsure voice with a relief. "Nothing you should be worried about."

"It just made you miss school," she pointed out. "Doesn't seems like a small thing."

"Like I wasn't skipping before," Yoshiki shrugged.

Shinozaki groaned with frustration.

"You are impossible!" Then she turned away and headed towards the seat where Satoshi was sitting, with Nakashima hanging out nearby.

Good, Yoshiki decided. He really felt too tired to argue for even a minute more and that unpleasant feeling of dizziness was back. Yoshiki hid face in both of his hands and tried to release some of the tension by massaging his temples and breathing deeply, but that wasn't helping. Every breath he took only reminded him about the uneasy feeling in his throat – almost like it was filled with something. He tried to swallow, but there was nothing to swallow and gulping down the air alone wasn't helping at all. Suddenly, there was way too much saliva in his mouth and his tongue felt like it was going to tie itself into a knot.

Concentrating all his attention on crossing the way to the bathroom without swallowing or taking too deep breath, Yoshiki somehow managed to make it, just before his stomach spasmed violently.

It would be easier, if his stomach wasn't already empty, he thought, spitting down to get rid of at least part of the bitter taste in his mouth and waited for another round of the painful retching.  
>Just when Yoshiki was concentrating on the unpleasant feeling to try and cause the vomits, so he could be done with it already, the doors to the bathroom opened and he could clearly hear heavy steps closing in to his stall. He knew these steps well, he spend most of his first year avoiding the man like plague.<p>

"Oh, great," Yoshiki muttered under his breath. Just what he waited for.

"Kishinuma?" Tsubota instantly recognized him. "Is that you in that stall?"

"I'm not smoking!"

"That's not the right answer," he clearly could hear the snicker in the coach's voice. "But it can suffice for now. Get out!"

"'m occupied!"

And he was. The only thing that seemed to cooperate with Yoshiki today was his poor upset stomach. And it wasn't helping too much, since it was already empty.

Tsubota naturally just had to open the doors when he started painfully retching, trying to spit out anything at all and failing rather miserably.

"For crying out-!" The man groaned. "What did you do with yourself now?"

"Nothin-?" Yoshiki proposed, then coughed again. His throat felt like it was on fire and was almost sure that at some point he was going to throw up his very stomach.

"Like hell you did nothing," the man huffed. "You've decided to test out some fancy pills or just got into a plain old fight?"

"Can we roll with the "fell down the stairs" excuse?"

Tsubota looked at him, from top of the head and all the way down and then snickered.

"When you looks like that?" he shook his head. "No way in hell."

"Then bug off."

"And then suffer the consequences when you drop somewhere in the middle of a corridor and cause a sensation?" Tsubota snorted. "No way. I'm actually thinking about calling an ambulance to get you out of my hair."

"That's an overkill."

"Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?"

"It's not that bad."

Tsubota then dragged him out of the stall, just to prove that he was mistaken and it indeed looked bad. His skin was chalk-white - excluding the area around his eyes. There were dark shadows that looked almost reddish. Hi eyes looked wrong too, like they weren't white enough.

"Okay, you have proven your point," Yoshiki groaned. "Now I can go? I have like two more hours of school..."

"Three, and you're not going," Tsubota cut it. "You're about to drop any minute now."

"So go away and act like you hadn't seen me."

Tsubota, of course, wasn't cooperative at all and instead of being left alone, he found himself in a hospital. The coach hauled Yoshiki there himself. At least Yoshiki thought so; he couldn't recall it, no matter how hard he tried. One moment he was at school and a second later he was sitting in front of the tiny little man with mousey eyes who looked very doctorish in his white coat.

"It doesn't look like he got into a fight," the doctor said, almost like he was finishing some sentence. He probably was. Yoshiki decided to act like he paid attention for the whole time and the whole deal with dragging him here was just a misunderstanding. "I clearly can see some fall damage on his backs and left shoulder. Were you trying your skills at parkour or something?"

"Well," Yoshiki snorted. "Guess I sucks at it, don't I?"

"Are you sure this is the right time to joke around?" Tsubota eyed him suspiciously.

"Hey!" Yoshiki protested. "You heard the good doctor, I wasn't fighting, I just fell!"

"And the blunt damage to the head?"

"I landed hard?"

Both men looked at him oddly. That was probably a really bad lie, but he wasn't too good at thinking for the moment.

"What I don't understand is why you are dehydrated," the doctor said.

"I didn't feel like drinking," Yoshiki shrugged. "You know, since everything was going back anyway."

"You," Tsubota said slowly. "Are an idiot."

"Do you still feel nauseous?"

"Kinda?" Yoshkiki grimaced. "I don't think I'm going to try eating any time soon."

"We can't have that," the doctor shook his head. "Hope you're not afraid of needles."

Yoshiki furrowed his brow, not understanding, but it was too late. Moment later there was huge needle in his forearm with a drip attached to it.

"Ouch," he protested, but not too loudly. He was much too tired for it.

xxx

Something was definitely up in the air, even if Mikio couldn't exactly call it by name at this very moment. First, he learned that the newest addition to the staff ended up in the hospital during the previous night, with multiple stab wounds on her backs and shoulder and a broken hand. Then, he found Kishinuma with a concussion. And a collection of rather interesting bruises.

"I have no idea what happened to him," the doctor admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to talk to you."

"Hey, he's emancipated," Mikio said with a grimace. "So that makes schoolteachers the closest thing to his caretaker, right? And if he is some sort of trouble... I just need to know."

It took more than that to talk the doctor into sharing the information on Kishinuma, but after a phone call to the school and then another one to the janitor to bring all the needed files, Mikio finally could learn what spooked the medic about Kishinuma.

"First of all, there is that blunt trauma to the head," the doctor started. "Someone smashed him from behind with a heavy item, probably a hammer or other tool like that."

"Ouch," Mikio grimaced.

"Then, there is the bruising," the doctor continued. "These were not inflicted at once, there was up to several hours between the oldest and the most fresh damage. Both of his knees, left hip and shoulder, upper parts of his back, and neck. The last one looks like it was self-inflicted, too."

"Was what?" Mikio shook his head. "So he was trying to what, hang himself?"

"No, not that. There is a clear imprint of his hands, when you know what to look for."

"So he was high as hell and went crazy?"

"No traces of narcotics or other substances in his blood," the doctor shook his head. "Actually, this is where it gets baffling. He's much more dehydrated than he's supposed to be. There's no history of diabetes in his files, but blood sugar was dangerously low too. Actually, it all looks like he wasn't eating or drinking for at least twenty four hours. Probably more."

"Huh," Mikio tilted his head, thinking. "I don't know if the kid got trouble with not eating. But he's living on his own, so he maybe just went out of cash? He never was very responsible or anything."

"We are going to keep him under observation at least until tomorrow. Longer, if bloodwork is going to looks bad."

"Fine by me," Mikio shrugged. "But you're going to be dealing with a pretty pissed off teen, by then. He's a stubborn little bugger, that one."

"Oh, believe me, we've meet plenty of that sort."

Mikio wanted to just leave, since the doctor couldn't tell him anything more at the moment and they were not letting anyone near Shishido at least until tomorrow, but somehow, he ended up checking out on Kishinuma anyway.

The brat was asleep and looked like crap. Pale, hospital PJs wasn't doing him any favor, making him seem to be even more sickly pale than he was before. The bruises were finally showing in their full colors too. The doc was right about them being disturbing. Not every day one could see a brat with a bruise in the shape of his very own hands on the neck. It almost looked like a weird fashion statement, a very thick collar–shaped necklace or some other weird thing the goth kids were wearing these days.

He just shook his head and walked away, trying to force the image out of his mind. However, it wasn't going anywhere. Like it imprinted itself on the inner side of his eyelids, or deep inside of his head, somewhere. The picture was just leaking back into his mind when he was driving home and then when he re–heated himself a dinner.

In the bathroom, Mikio stopped in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection for a few seconds, before he slowly, carefully, raised both of his hands and wrapped fingers around his throat. He wasn't even squeezing too hard for the whole thing to start feel unpleasant.

"Goddamn!" he groaned and shook his head, grasping onto the surface of the sink instead. "Just how hard you have squeeze, to actually leave bruises?!"

It woke him during the night too, several times, like his subconsciousness was trying to tell Mikio something he couldn't quite grasp. Early in the morning, he made himself a cup of unusually strong coffee, but before he sat down to drink it, he quickly jogged out of his apartment and stopped by a small shop, demanding all the newspapers they had, recent and from yesterday. There just had to be an answer to what had happened in the night of the festival, the only problem lied in finding it.

At the school, after dropping his pile of reading material onto his desk, Mikio noticed that not only Kishinuma looked like someone beaten him into the ground. Mochida also didn't look to well and also had bruises. Which was odd, since he was one of the safe students, who never got in the ridiculous fights. A good kid, from good family, without a baggage of troubles like his so called friend.

With a frown, Mikio tried to remember, who else was a part of their group. Then he just waited by their classroom when it was time for the P.E. and counted those, who didn't look too well. Easy, and there were only a few too, but it only made him even more confused than he was before.

xxx

She hadn't done her homework.

Weird, how a few days ago it would be such a big deal. With that though, Ayumi sat down on her chair and slowly went through her bag, pulling out notebook and her pencil.

A few days ago forgetting about homework was her worst nightmare. Now, however...

Ayumi's eyes wandered towards the place, where Mayu was used to sit. Just behind it was another empty seat, that once belonged to Morishige. Now they both were dead and nobody even remembered they ever existed. And it was her fault. She was the one who dragged her friends into that hellish dimension, she was the one who proceed with the Charm, even after Mochida pointed out, that there might be some unknown result if they fail it. They did the Charm and then they died.  
>If only she wasn't stupid enough to trust Naho. If only she managed to spot the odd thing about the proxy doll her sister noticed after studying the instructions for only few minutes. If only Ayumi actually talked with Hinoe before deciding it would be a good thing to do something like that!<p>

Ayumi grit her teeth and closed eyes, trying to wish away the stinging sensation. This was not the place nor time for crying. For all these people around her, nothing had ever happen. The three who died – they never ever existed. Only few people knew the truth and she should care about them, make sure they were alright.

Ayumi looked around with a frown on her face. Satoshi and Naomi were already in their seats and she knew that Ms. Yui was still in the hospital, so her not being in the class wasn't that odd. But there should be one more person.

Ayumi licked her lips. Was he going to show up late, just like yesterday? It was really scary, to just sit there and wait, not being sure if he was okay or something else happened to him. She told him that it was plain cruel to his friends, to pull something like that off and he seemed to be sorry for what he'd done.

Then why he wasn't here now?

The lesson already started and Ayumi tried to fake the interest in the subject, while her gaze kept wandering between the clock and doors to the class. However no matter how hard she wished for Kishinuma to finally walk through the doors with that smirk of his and some stupid excuse for being late, he just wasn't showing up.

And yesterday… sometime yesterday he had disappeared too, didn't he?

Ayumi really hoped that Kishinuma didn't land himself in some sort of trouble, because he was unable to keep his nerves in check and finally lashed out at Tsubota or some other teacher. His reputation was still pretty bad, even if he stopped skipping school so much.

But he would at least call, wouldn't he? He knew that Ayumi was worrying and used to bug her on the cell with much smaller stuff all the time. She considered for a little moment to write him a message, but decided to ask Mochida before doing anything else. They were best friends, on first name basis and all, so he should know where the other guy was.

"Hey, Mochida...?" Ayumi mumbled, when she was close enough for him to hear her, just after the bell rang and the lesson finally came to an end. "Do you know where Kishinuma is?"

"No idea," he shook his head. "Yesterday he vanished before the fifth period."

"I've noticed," she nodded. "you think he decided to skip?"

"He didn't look to good," Naomi added with a small frown. "Maybe he decided to head back home and just sleep it off?"

"He would say something," Satoshi argued back. "I'm sure of it."

"What you guys are talking about?"

"Kishinuma," Ayumi answered shortly.

"Ah, yeah," the boy laughed. "He's not in the class so you're annoyed. Typical Class rep!"

"Do you know something?"

"I saw him walking into the shitter," he shrugged. "Not long later Tsubota showed up and dragged him off somewhere."

"Somewhere?"

"Those lucky bastards from 2-6 got free period instead of P.E, so, yeah. Somewhere," he shrugged.

"Well," Ayumi sighed. "Then let's go and find Mr. Tsubota."

"You sure about that?" Satoshi asked quietly. "I can bug him on my own, if you want."

"No," Ayumi shook her head. "I'm the Class Rep and I should at least by interested with what's going on with my classmates."

"Then we're going together," Nakashima decided. "He's our friend too, you know."

Ayumi couldn't help herself but smile, feeling a conforming warmth feeling her for the first time in few days. She still had friends and they were still willing to stand by her side.

The coach, as usual during the lunch break, was creeping through the corridors of the Kisaragi Academy, randomly checking out bathroom and hidden corners on the outside of the building, trying to find those kids who smoke or did other things against the school rules. It seemed that landing kids in trouble was a very odd hobby of his. Things were like that since he just started to working here and all the new kids were forewarned about the man by their seniors.  
>It was quite unusual to look for the man instead of trying to get out of his way, but finding him wasn't too difficult. Especially if he managed to find someone to screech at.<p>

Today however was an odd day and they found him sitting in his office, hovering over a newspaper and reading it with unusual passion; almost like he was expecting to find there some sort of a revelation or the universal reason for life and universe, or something. There was a pile of other newspapers on the desk too. The front page of the one visible looked like some trashy local tabloid, with big letters and snippets of articles that seemed to be just cheap controversy rather than solid information.

"Um, Mr. Tsubota?" Ayumi asked, trying to force on her most innocent looking face. "Can we please talk to you for a minute?"

He eyed her from over his newspaper, then shortly nodded and put the paper away.

"Sure."

"Um..." Ayumi bit the inside of her cheek. "We heard that you were the last one to saw Kishinuma yesterday. And he's not in the school today, so... is he in trouble?"

His reaction was odd. He looked over her, like he was searching for something odd and then he did the same with Satoshi and Naomi.

"And you kids know what could've possibly happened to him the day before?"

Ayumi blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"The day of the festival," Tsubota said. "Your class was the last to leave the building and I know that Kishinuma actually decided to show up for the whole thing."

"I'm afraid we don't understand," Satoshi said quickly.

"So let me make it easy for you. The next day Kishinuma showed up a bit... let's say roughed up. And you know rather well how we here looks upon kids getting into fights, right?"

"He hadn't!" Ayumi protested angrily, before she managed to bit her tongue. But this man, throwing accusation at Kishinuma like that... she was unable to let it pass. Not after all he went through.

"He hadn't, huh?" Tsubota raised an eyebrow. "Then tell me, how come, I found him puking his guts out, because of some nasty concussion that apparently came out of nowhere?"

Ayumi gasped.

It was hard to not remember walking down the dark halls of Heavenly Host on her own and when Kishinuma finally showed up, he told her a vague story about being hit by Yoshikazu. She remembered the wound too. Back there, she hoped it was just a cut and a nasty bruise he got there, but apparently, not. If what Tsubota said was true...

"We know nothing about that," Satoshi said coldly.

"Then how come all of you guys seems to be so... unwell?" Tsubota smirked.

"We decided to race down the stairs," Naomi quickly lied. "But it was a dumb idea. It was dark and I tripped over and twisted my ankle. I've tried to grab onto something and ended up dragging Shinozaki down with me."

"Falling down the stairs? Are you serious?"

"We've done nothing wrong," Ayumi huffed. "I'm very sorry, but I don't feel comfortable with all these questions. Thank you for your time, Mr. Tsubota."

They walked away quickly, followed by his suspicious stare. The coach didn't stop them, but he clearly hadn't believed a word they said. More than that, he was acting like he was suspecting not only Kishinuma, but all of them of committing some sort of a crime.

Ayumi felt, like her head was spinning. Just what was going on? What was that man even thinking? What was he trying to prove?

"Damn," Naomi shivered with disgust, when they were at a safe distance from the office. "This guy is awful! What in the world he wanted to hear from us? That we got into some sort of a fight?!"

"Don't mind him, he's always like that," Satoshi waved his hand. "Especially when it comes to Yoshiki. They don't like each other very much."

"Hate each other guts, more likely," Ayumi muttered, still wearing a worried frown. "You think Kishinuma is okay? That sounded serious."

"Maybe he was just making it up to force us to tell something?"

"Nuh-uh," Satoshi shook his head. "He would end up answering to the headmaster, for disappearing yesterday. Without a word or anything... and he's already in trouble for being too harsh on the students. He wouldn't risk that much."

"So, you think he took Kishinuma to the hospital, or something like that?"

"Then I applause the man with all my might, Kishinuma hates doctors and is always "just fine"."

"But what if it something serious?" Ayumi asked nervously. "I don't want him to-!"

"Relax," Satoshi sighed. "Yoshiki is as tough as they come. He's going to be more pissed than anything else at the whole situation."

"I should've talked him into visiting the emergency room when we left," she sniffled. "I knew he was hurt and I've done nothing...!"

"Hey, Class Rep," Naomi gently put hand on her shoulder. "You know that he would never agree to that. You'll see, Kishinuma is going to be just fine."

Satoshi hummed under his nose in agreement. "He's probably going to write himself off as soon as possible."

"He can do that?"

"He's, uh..." Satoshi grimaced. "The pretty word for it is emancipated. That's mean he can decide about that stuff on his own, without any guardian or anything."

"Oh," Ayumi nodded, not sure what else there was to say. She knew that Kishinuma lived on his own, it was hard not to, considering how loud Tsubota was when he threw it in Kishinuma's face. But to not have a parent to be with you when you go to the hospital? How could they? It was just so unfair.

xxx

At first, Yoshiki was just too tired to really care what was going on or where he was. But now, after sleeping through most of the afternoon and because whatever was in that IV was clearly doing its magic, Yoshiki found himself being pretty pissed off.

First of all, it was Tsubota of all people who drove him here. The one asshole Yoshiki couldn't stand. And, considering the fact that Yoshiki couldn't recall the travel - or admission itself - at all, it was possible that some amount of carrying was included.

Then, there was the fact, that he was in the hospital. He hated places like that guts. Not because of some ridiculous fear of needles. He just could feel it seeping out all the energy out of him, together with time and money. The last two were definitely important in his situation. He had to be out of here and quick, because the rent wasn't going to pay itself.

On the other hand, Tsubota was right. Those few hours ago Yoshiki barely could see straight and while now he felt better, he knew that trying to bend over to tie his shoe or anything else stupid like that would have dire consequences. Working in such condition definitely was out of question, he wasn't stupid enough to risk fainting and falling face–first into hot oil or something else as gruesome as that.

No, Yoshiki decided to spend at least a night here. Maybe tomorrow he will be good enough to go. He could visit Ms. Yui in the morning and then return to his shoebox of a flat and curl under blankets and eat that unhealthy, cheap food from the grocery store that you just had to put in the microwave to get the dish ready. He felt like he fully deserved to have a little breakdown of his own sometime soon.

But for now, he was bored out of his mind, drowsy, but not tired enough to actually try to sleep. TV was out of the question. Yoshiki was just fine with the sound and even loud noises, but the sudden change of colors and blinking lights… those felt like he was stabbing himself with red hot iron needle right in the eyes.

So, Yoshiki was stuck with his dumb, old phone, desperately trying to find something to do, but the games were just plain annoying and his reflexes completely off anyway. He started to consider calling someone and having a long chat about nothing important.

Well, it was not like he had anything better to do. It wasn't too late to make phone calls either. At first, he considered bugging Satoshi, but he didn't want him to start worrying over the whole hospital deal. It wasn't like Yoshiki was bed-ridden or something like that.  
>Calling Ayumi was out of the question, since she was already on the guilt trip about the whole thing and he wasn't close enough to Nakashima to bug her in the evenings. Besides, the girl had her own issues and didn't need to fret about anyone else.<p>

There was another number, too, a new one. Of a person who lived in another city, so was not going to come here and bug him or make a scene. For a few moments Yoshiki toyed with the thought, flipping the phone open just to close it again, before he finally decided to make the call.

"Oh, my Knight," Azusa greeted him brightly, using that ridiculous nickname. "How's life?"

"That's the question I wanted to ask you," Yoshiki said softly, shifting slightly on the bed to find more comfortable position. " Can you talk now?"

"Sure thing," she agreed. "I'm not doing anything important."

"Good to know. I would hate to get in the way of your studies."

"Oh?" There was an interest in her voice. "So you care about grades then?"

"I don't really care about my grades," he admitted honestly. "Not much, at least. But I know that other people really worry about it and for a good reason, too."

"That's pretty sweet of you."

"I don't know about the sweet thing, someone would probably punch me in the eye for bugging him when he's occupied."

Azusa chuckled.

Then they talked about nothing important. Just small things, like dumb stories about teachers and classmates, favorite musing and food.

"You really can cook?"

"Hey, the homeroom class is everywhere," Yoshiki muttered. "Everyone cooks!"

"Well, yeah. But most people aren't that good at it. I know I'm not."

"I sort of have to be," Yoshiki admitted. "I work at a restaurant."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he smiled and started to explain. "Theoretically speaking I'm hired there just to wash the dishes. It's not a big place, so they don't hire many people, so sometimes I have to help with actual cooking."

"Huh, learning from a real chief? That's interesting."

"He's a pretty cool guy," Yoshiki admitted. "I sometimes stay overtime, because he wants to show me something new, so I can do more during busy hours."

"That must be pretty fun."

"It is," he admitted. "But now..."

"Did something happen?"

"Sort of?" Yoshiki admitted with a grimace. "I was smacked in the head in... that place. I was more or less fine there, but sometime after we returned home it got a bit worse."

"A bit?" Azusa asked carefully.

"I might be a bit concussed?" Yoshiki admitted. "It turned against me at school. I think I'm fine now, but I worry a bit."

"Yeah, you should be careful with that."

"Well, the problem is, I can't actually let go of this job or take a lot of free days," Yoshiki explained with heavy sigh.

"Mind if I ask...?"

"I live on my own," he said shortly. "Nothing for you to worry about. In the worst case scenario I'll just talk my boss into giving me a few unpaid days and go freeloading on my friend."

"Well, good to have a plan," Azusa exhaled. "But, can you call me tomorrow too? I would feel better this way."

"Can do," Yoshiki agreed.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Hello again! I wanted to sit on this chapter for awhile (since it's the last one of the pre-written stuff), but I'm bad with waiting, I guess...  
>I really enjoy writing Tsubota and Yoshiki interact with each other. And Tsubota is not going to leave any time soon, since he can tell that there is something odd going on.<br>Also, important thing, canon - I roll with the manga and the Blood Covered game and I'm pretty much ignoring 2U. 2U is like The New SW Trilogy or Stargate:Universe for me, I know it exist and a stuff that's going on in there, but I'm not going to poke at it. I prefer sticking to the old stuff.  
>Everyone tend to install Yoshiki at some sort of a music shop, so I decided to be a special snowflake and do something different.<p>

I'm going to have my fun around the Book of Shadows, Blood Drive and Dead Patient plotlines, but the small changes here and there pretty much caused an avalanche of differences and pretty much flipped the table with the canon. I'm just picking up the prettiest pieces and building a very different thing.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Hello again! For reasons unknown, I find a lot of joy in writing the characters awkwardly interacting with each other.  
>Thanks for all the reviews and hits and all the attention!<p>

**Chapter 6**  
><strong>Suspicions, Apartments And A Cat<strong>

Just after he finished his last lesson, Mikio found himself in the hospital again. It was still fairly early in the morning and he was usually happily lazing out back in his apartment, enjoying the early start of his weekend. The plan was to check once again on the brat and try to pry something new out of him – if Kishinuma was even in the hospital at that point – while he was still quite out of it and unable to lie his way out. It changed, when Mikio learned, that Shishido was well enough to have visitors. After only a few seconds of consideration, Mikio decided that the young teacher would definitely be much better source of information. Definitely without a reason to hide anything… which made the situation so much more weird, because that was exactly what she was doing.

"Can you please tell me, what exactly happened?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't think..."

"Look, if you're afraid, or something, don't be," Mikio quickly tried to reassure her. "We can call the police, hell, they can even install a bodyguard or something around your place."

"Why would..." Shishido shook her head. "Look, whatever you think had happened, you got it wrong. Just leave it, please."

That made him groan. Just leave it. Someone send her to a hospital bed in a shape bad enough to be considered serious and she was just asking him to forget about the whole thing!

"Look," Mikio finally said with a heavy sigh. "I know you're a good person and don't want to put anyone in trouble. But there are things, that shouldn't go unpunished."

Shishido and Kishinuma got injured at the same time and Mikio knew that they were both coming back late from the school festival. Many people knew that the young teacher got the soft spot for her first group of students and they had it easy, when wanted to talk her into something. So, if one of them landed in some sort of trouble, then she would sure as hell help with all her might. She was young, she was naïve and she believed in people way too much, so maybe–

"Wait, wait!" Shishido gasped. "You think Kishinuma did it?!"

Mikio awkwardly looked away. Here he was, trying to be subtle and she caught what he was suggesting without any trouble at all. At seemed to be pretty angry about even suggesting something like that. "Well, he is sort of-"

"Don't you even dare to finish that sentence!" the woman hissed at him. "One more word and I'm going to punch you!"

"Woah!" Tsubota gasped. "Easy now! I'm sorry If I said something wrong!"

"You better be!" Shishido groaned. "I know you have a problem with him, but dear lord! Don't throw accusation like that!"

Mikio furrowed his brow. The kid was troublesome, true, and most of the teachers didn't like him much. Excluding Shishido, who seemed to like the brat. Kid seemed to be surprisingly fond of her too, not even skipping classes anymore.

Besides, no one could get so defensive about their assailant, even such an idealist like Shishido.

Mikio considered pushing some more, because that usually got all the answers out of the brats he needed, even if the headmaster had issues with this method. But Shishido looked like she was about to jump out of her bed and punch him - or do something like that. It would be really a bad idea to move around with fresh sewing on one's back, not to mention the fact that waving a hand with an IV in was like begging for another set of trouble to happen.

"Okay, sorry!" He threw his hands in the air, admitting his defeat. "But you must admit, it all looks a tad suspicious, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"People have eyes," Mikio groaned. "Seriously. When a bunch of students walk around roughed up, one of them ends up in hospital and their teacher too... you start to have weird thoughts."

"Wait!" Shishido gasped. "One of them?! What happened?!"

Her eyes widened with fear and she paled visibly. The reaction was so quick, it scared Mikio. What if she was going to faint, or got sick, or something else? The medical personnel would surely skin him alive!

"Relax, nothing too terrible," he said quickly. "I've just found Kishinuma with a nasty concussion and dragged him here. They made him spend a night here, but that's more or less it."

"More or less?" Shishido glared at him suspiciously.

"Well, there is a lot of bruising on him and issue with dehydration that the good doc can't wrap his mind around. But nothing irreversible."

She exhaled deeply with obvious relief. Definitely too strong reaction.

"Look, I need to ask another question. Are you in trouble?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Bruises and stab wounds don't just show up out of thin air, Shishido. Something or somebody had happened to you. And I need to know-"

"No," she shook her head. "I don't think we're in any danger. It was just a bad luck. Can we stick with that?"

Mikio gave her a long look. Shishido didn't seem like she was going to change her mind about the whole thing any time soon. Besides, she definitely needed her rest and reminding her about whatever had happened definitely wasn't helping.

"Fine," he finally said. "But someone is probably come to bug you anyway."

"I know," she sighed. Then her eyes darted back to him.

Mikio blinked, once again weirded out by her actions. "What?"

"I have a cat," she said.

"Okay?"

"You are going to feed it."

"O–" he started. Then his brain caught up on the situation. "Wait, what?"

xxx

Half of an hour had already passed since Tsubota left her room and Yui was still boiling with anger.

Just how could he, throw accusation like that left and right, not stopping for even a moment to think. What if someone overheard him? Just a few words could lead into a truly dangerous grounds, especially since that boy already had a rather bad reputation among people that hadn't tried to actually know him.

At least she managed to use him. Poor Monet, he was definitely starving by now and Yui was about to ask one of the nurses to do her a favor. Explaining how she ended in the hospital to one of her friends was out of the question and calling parents would be even worse. Tsubota showed up just in the right moment, even if it was quite odd, to ask someone who was pretty much a stranger to walk into her apartment. She would be definitely feeling guilty… if the man wasn't such an ass.

Just as she was trying to calm herself with imagining the man on the litter-box duty, there was a short knock before the doors to her room opened again.

"Hey, Teach!" Kishinuma grinned happily at her. With messed up hair and all these bruises and scratches he looked like a hooligan who was really proud of himself.

Yui tried to frown at him, but it was hard when she was smiling at the same time. "Are you supposed to be out of your bed?"

"I'm fine!" was the immediate answer.

Well, it was not like she herself wasn't looking like an absolute hell. Though the bandages were hiding most of it in her case and Yui was very grateful for that. It was enough that she was the one in the bed, not the other way around.

"Tsubota said something else," she pointed out.

"Oh?" Kishinuma raised his eyebrows. "He was here, wasn't he?"

Yui nodded. "He said that he drove you here. Among other things."

As she expected, he frowned at that. "Other things?"

"Don't worry yourself over it," she shook her head. "I shouldn't be even mentioning that."

"He was just trying to find a proof that I'm the one responsible for you landing in the hospital bed, wasn't he?" Yoshiki grimaced.

"Don't worry about him," Yui repeated. "I told him how stupid he is. And then send him on the litter-box duty."

"Litter-box?"

"Monet was getting annoyed at me about that," Yui chuckled. "And somebody has to feed him anyway."

"Remind me to not piss you off," Kishinuma shuddered in a rather theatrical manner. "Cat poop, the pure horror!"

"Then you better tell me what's up with you."

"A concussion," he just shrugged. "Figures, considering how hard that guy smacked me. I'm pretty much okay now."

"It doesn't work like that, you know?"

"I called my boss," he sighed heavily. "And he's fine with me not showing up for some time."

Or rather of having an opportunity to put his nephew to some work. Yoshiki heard all sort of stories about the kid who constantly was whining about not having any money, while not trying to get them at all. Boss had bad backs, so the kid was about to carry around a lot of heavy stuff.

"That's good," Yui nodded.

"Yeah," Yoshiki nodded. "I was scared that I would lose this job and that wouldn't be fun. But it ended up fine. So, what about you, teach?"

"This is going to take awhile, but I should be fine," Yui lied smoothly. The doctor doubted that she would ever have full control of her wounded arm. Too many things were severed and the nasty break wasn't helping the situation at all. but there was no need to tell him that, Kishinuma had enough worries of his own.

"Good to hear."

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "So, when they are going to let you out?"

"Actually, I was thinking about letting myself out soon. I just wanted to check on you before leaving."

"Don't even think about it!" She instantly cut it. The sudden raise of her voice startled him enough to made him jump.

"But I'm fine!" He protested, still staring at her with wide open eyes.

"That's not truth and you know it," Yui grunted. Then she frowned. "You do have insurance, right?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Otherwise it would be a pure nightmare."

"Then use it," Yui rolled her eyes. "Seriously, there's no reason to risk with your health for no reason at all!"

"I won't be risking anything," Kishinuma was still pouting. "I just want to sleep it off at home."

"You shouldn't be alone," Yui winced. "I know how you feel about it, trust me. But I think you should stay, at least a bit more."

"They told me that nothing odd showed up at my MRI's."

"And they told you that some things can appear after weeks, right?"

"I'm so not going to sit here for weeks!"

"Then just for few more days, huh?" Yui said. Then smirked at him. "Then you can go to school! You should be fine right for the midterm exams!"

His face immediately turned sour.

"Yay," he grunted humorlessly. "Just what I was worrying about."

"Oh, don't be like that," Yui chuckled. "Since were both stuck here, I might at least help you to get ready."

He still had a rather comical expression of disgust on his face.

"Don't look at me like that, some of this stuff is actually pretty useful."

"Whatever," he finally sighed, accepting his defeat.

"Great!" Yui grinned happily. "I'm going to call Tsubota to bring me some of my books... since I already gave him my keys he might at least be of some use..."

"Remind me to never be on your bad side, teach," Kishinuma shuddered slightly, probably because he noticed the evil glint in her eyes. Or because he was just playing along. Any excuse was good for a little bit of laughter.

"You should ask someone to bring your things too," she said after a short moment. "It would be easier to work on two sets of books. And I don't think I have a math textbook among my things anyway..."

"You want to teach me math too?"

"I finished the same school only five years ago," Yui rolled her eyes. "My memory is just fine, you know."

"Uh, okay!" he quickly backed off, clearly not in the mood for any fights at the moment. "I'm going to call Mochida, knowing him he's going to show up here anyway."

"Not your sister?"

"I don't want to mix her into all of this," he sighed. "And I definitely don't want to lie to her. It's enough that I have to tell stories to everybody else."

"Right," Yui closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. It would be so much easier if other people would actually believe them if they tell the truth about the Heavenly Host and the Charm, and everything else. But that was impossible. It would raise only more questions and probably some people would be glad to see all of them in some sort of a psychiatric ward. she couldn't have that. Her students needed to be alive and safe, even from stupid things like midterm exams and surprise tests. If Yui had to lie through her teeth and then lie some more just to keep them out of danger, then she would gladly spend her whole life on creating the best stories possible.

"By the way, I called that Takai girl yesterday," Kishimuna noticed her mood and decided to change the topic. "She said that they both are just fine."

"Really?" Yui smiled. "That's great!"

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "We talked a day before too, but it's always better to know."

Before she opened her mouth and started poking fun at him, a nurse opened the doors and stormed into the room, almost literally shooting thunders from her eyes.

"Here you are!"

Kishinuma yelped.

"You can't just wander off like that, without telling anybody about it!"

"Uh, sorry?"

"That's all you have to say for yourself? Do you have any idea how much time I've just spend looking for you all over the place?"

"Looking?" Yui repeated after the nurse, eyeing her student. Someone had a thing or two to explain.

xxx

Of course the cat had to assault him the very same moment Mikio carefully stepped into Shishido's apartment.

"Assault" probably was too strong word too use in that situation; the little devil was probably more startled by the whole thing than Mikio was. Then he made a very un-cat like screeching noise and ran away even faster.

"That," Mikio said, blinking slowly. "Was weird."

He just shrugged, since it was a cat after all. They were supposed to be weirdly amusing.

The entrance led straight to the kitchen, so Mikio hadn't too look too far for the cat food at all. Just a short inspection of the fridge and the cupboards and he found much more food for the furry menace than the products that were destined for humans. Figures.

Besides filling the bowls with the stinky meaty mass and the dry food (that stank too) and refilling the water bowl, there were other things to do. Like opening all the windows in the apartment, because it smelled bad and not only because of the cat business.

There was a pot standing on the oven and whatever was inside, definitely went bad. The sink was filled with cups, each of them partially filled with coffee leftovers, all of them already blossoming with white and green stains of mold. The only difference was in the size; in one of the cups the mold barely started to showing up, while the other one looked like he was filled with the nasty thing almost to the top.

"Eww!" Mikio voiced his opinion, then cleaned it all up anyway. Shishido wouldn't be able to do that with only one hand. But she owed him for that horror.

Another horror was awaiting in the bathroom in the shape of the litter-box, but that was actually easier; he just emptied the whole thing into the garbage and filled it with fresh litter.

Meanwhile the cat happily devoured all of the fresh food and looked like he was very satisfied with himself, observing him from the top of the fridge.

"Are you even allowed up there?" Mikio grunted, but the cat merely started to clean it's paws, ignoring him.

He filled the bowl once again - the animal was without food for about two days if his math was right - then closed the windows and left the apartment, taking the garbage bag on his way out.

Apparently the people from around the block had the nice, green policy of segregating their trash, which Mikio completely ignored and discarded his bag in the first container he found. It wasn't his trash anyway.

He was almost by the doors of his car, when his phone buzzed and he had to go back for the books. Annoying. what that woman was even planning to do with textbooks at the hospital?

Probably something she wasn't supposed to do while she was at the hospital. On the other hand, all wrongs that came out of the books were paper cuts, so if it was going to make her better, then what the hell.

Once again, the cat startled him and scared the crap out of itself by jumping out of some corner of the room. It ran away too, just like the last time.

He looked around for the books for a short while - and gee, Shishido should hire someone to clean up all that mess, she was living like a teenager - but he eventually found what she needed and could head back. The visiting hour where over when he reached the hospital, but there was no problem with dropping his package off with one of the nurses.

The way back home was uneventful and after that, there was nothing more for him to do, than to think.

Shishido was way too overprotective about Kishinuma for the brat to be at fault in any way. She probably had him drag the books to the hospital, because the woman got the bright idea of giving the kid a bonus lessons while he was at her hand's reach.

The sentiment seemed to go both ways, since Kishinuma actually stayed in the hospital instead of running away from there as fast as possible, just for the others of his kind to see how tough he is.

But if it wasn't Kishinuma, then who? Did Shishido got mixed up with something from the wrong side of the street or was a bystander in something the brat did? Mikio actually doubted it would be the later; that kid actually wasn't stupid enough to got mixed in things that included actual knives.

Mikio groaned with frustration. There was no way he was going to find any answers. Not when nobody wanted to tell him anything. And so many people were in this mess too! All the kids he never expected of even being able to get into that sort of mess that was leaving them with bruises all over their bodies.

xxx

They both were expecting it, but still, not seeing Nakashima in the class was a painful thing. With Kishinuma and Ms. Yui at the hospital, it felt like they were all alone, among the sea of people who didn't even have a chance to understand them.

Mochida looked worried too. More than just worried, to tell the truth. He wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he wasn't paying attention in class, just sitting there and staring at the doors or at the wall, just waiting for the school to end. If he wasn't staring, then he was on his phone, exchanging short messages with his sister.

"Should I try to call her?" Ayumi asked quietly, during one of the breaks.

"I don't think she wants to talk," Mochida sighed heavily. "She's declining all my calls. She just wrote that she needs a little time alone, to cry for Shinohara."

Ayumi nodded. Of course she would want that. They were so close and now Shinohara was not only gone, but not remembered by anyone but the painfully small group of the survivors.

"I wanted to go and see how is she doing after school," he continued. "But Yoshiki asked me for a favor."

"A favor?" Ayumi blinked.

He smiled a little. "Ms. Yui talked him to stay at the hospital. A small miracle, if you ask me. But she also wants to use the chance and made him study."

"Those are some big plans," Ayumi raised her eyebrows.

"Hey, he's not that bad!"

She couldn't help herself, but chuckle.

Anyhow, he asked me to bring him his textbooks and I uh... I know this is a big thing to ask for. But with Nakashima like that... Can you help me out a little?"

"I can do that!" Ayumi agreed before she even wrapped her mind about what he was asking for.

"Really?" Mochida blinked, surprised by how quickly she agreed.

"I just want to do something!" Ayumi explained quickly.

"Uh, okay. So, I've got his keys... do you know the address?"

"Yeah, I think I'm going to find it," she nodded. "I have internet in my phone, in the worst case scenario I would just google myself a map."

"Good to hear that," Mochida nodded, satisfied by her answer. "Sorry again for getting you into that."

"Don't worry," she quickly said. "I wanted to go visit Ms. Yui anyway. It's not a problem at all."

Or so she wanted him to think. Her brain was still short-circuiting around Mochida, even if now she knew perfectly well, that there was a certain thing between him and Nakashima and Ayumi had no chances at all.

The keys to Kishinuma's apartment were heavy in her hand. There was a small chain attached to them and a few different pendants with logos of different music bands. Ayumi vaguely remembered that after Kishinuma disappeared, it was Mochida who took care of his stuff, since the bag was still in the class. She supposed that the keys were inside too. Usually the so called bad boys liked to wear them in their pockets, especially with all these chains making all sorts of noise. Kishinuma always moved more like a cat and startled her more than once, suddenly appearing just behind her backs.

Ayumi chuckled at the memory. She was always so angry at him for sneaking at her like that, but in the hindsight, it actually was pretty funny. Especially the face Kishinuma was making, like he was startled much more that she was. She was curious if he was going to make such funny face when she hands him all the books. A few good grades would definitely do him good. She toyed with the chair and looked at the pendants from many angles, and then, she suddenly was there.

Ayumi swallowed. Only now, when she was already in front of the doors leading to the apartment she started to lose her confidence.

Was it really such a good idea? It was hardly the time for deciding that she wasn't up to the task. Calling Mochida, with some sort of a lie - and she had to create a plausible one, too! - to explain why she was suddenly unable to get the books and bring them to the hospital, especially after she was so eager to do that in the first place?

Ayumi shook her head. It was just entering an apartment, what she was afraid of?

Before the doubts were back, she quickly put the key in the lock and opened the doors.

Ayumi fully expected to see a mess. After all Kishinuma lived on his own and was a boy and because of that he was fully expected to just drop stuff on the floor and forget about it.

It wasn't that bad. Not the cleanest and somebody really should explain to Kishinuma that a chair was not a hanger. That had to be a record amount of clothing piled in a place that wasn't a wardrobe, too.

Oddly enough, there were no dirty dishes nowhere and finding the right books was a pretty easy task too; they were right on the bookshelf, where books were supposed to be in the first place.

To get the last few ones, Ayumi had to go through Kishinuma's bag. She felt bad about it, since it felt much more like she was meddling with his privacy completely uninvited, but there was no way around it. Besides, those were just school things, nothing too personal.

To tell the truth, the whole apartment didn't look like something personal. Besides the clothing piled on the chair, there was nothing that could prove that the place indeed belonged to Kishinuma and not somebody else. It was just so... generic, more like a hotel room than anything else. Though, with actually attending the school and working somewhere after that Kishinuma sure was using his place just like a hotel room - just to sleep.

After a moment of consideration Ayumi decided to also grab the charger; Kishinuma's phone had to be dying by now. For a short moment, she was thinking about looking around some more. Just to check this and that out of pure curiosity. Kishinuma never talked much about himself and all she knew about him was that crap Mr. Tsubota was spilling when the mood strikes him.

"You can always ask yourself," Ayumi muttered angrily and walked away, before her will weakened. She seriously didn't need the drama that would go with being discovered at doing something like that.

Luckily, soon she had other thing to concentrate on. Or less luckily, especially for er shoulder. The bag filled with books was heavy and the bus stop annoyingly far away. Now she knew one of the reasons why a high school student was able to afford that place in the first place - the shoebox size and the distance between the building and any sort of decent way to the city... and the metro station was even further away!

Ayumi breathed out with relief, when she finally could sit down.

Now she at least could understood why Kishinuma was skipping so much. In his situation she would probably start to miss an hour or two of school time every now and then. Not that Ayumi was even going to admit that out loud.

The feeling of awkwardness returned when she walked through the hospital gates. It was stupid, Ayumi knew that. To feel ashamed, because she went though someone's school bag. And she saw that someone at his worst, too. Hell, Kishinuma saw Ayumi at her worst too. And not only that. She was pretty sure that at some point she wiped her nose in his shirt, of all the thing she could do.

So why she was nervous about dumb schoolbooks?

Ayumi, feeling a bit ashamed of herself, choose the easy way and decided to visit Ms. Yui instead. Kishinuma definitely was spending a lot of time with her. After all, who else to talk Kishinuma into studying than Ms. Yui?

Ayumi chuckled to herself, imagining the whole scene. Their lovely teacher was probably scolding him up till the point Kishinuma admitted his defeat. Probably not without some weird comment too.

It improved Ayumi's mood enough that she was looking forward to the meeting.

Only to stop dead after she opened the doors.

Just her luck - Kishinuma, who Ayumi really wanted to avoid for at least a little more time - was sitting next to Ms. Yui. He would be looking just fine, if not for the white dressing clearly visible on his head, where that nasty wound was. Dark stains of bruises were noticeable too, lurking from under the sleeves of loose hoodie Kishinuma was wearing. The material wasn't covering his entire neck either.

Why he was there? He wasn't supposed to be there, he was supposed to sit in his room! And sitting on the bed, of all places possible, arm in arm with the teacher, bended over a book on her knees. They were so close, it was just… if not for the hospital and the bandages, they would be definitely looking much closer to each other than any teacher and student should.

"Oh, Shinozaki!" Ayumi was noticed before she had a chance to back away.

Ms. Yui was the one who first noticed her, since her head shot up right when she heard the opening doors, while Kishinuma seemed to be to occupied by the book he was reading to notice. Only after Ms. Yui cheerfully welcomed her, his head shot up. he almost dropped the book too, startled enough to jump.

"I-I... I brought the books!" Ayumi stuttered. Her face felt like it was burning.

"Huh?" Kishinuma frowned slightly. "Mochida made you carry all that stuff on your own?"

"It wasn't his fault!" Ayumi instantly pouted at him. "Besides, I offered!"

"I am so going to have a word with him!" Kishinuma grunted.

"Your phone is dead," Ms. Yui pointed out, chuckling softly.

"I have your charger too," Ayumi mumbled. She dropped the bag on the chair, trying to not act like it was heavy at all.

"How is everyone?" Ms. Yui asked gently.

"Mochida and Yuka are fine," Ayumi answered, looking down at the bag and her hands. "I'm worried about Nakashima, though. She hadn't showed up at school today, so Mochida decided to check on her instead of heading here. He said he's sorry about that."

"Well, he couldn't just leave her alone," Kishinuma muttered. "What about you, Shinozaki?"

"I'm okay," she answered quickly. Maybe too quickly because Kishinuma frowned at her, like he just caught her on lying right into his face.

Which she was. By all means, Ayumi felt like anything but fine. She just didn't want them to worry. Ms. Yui still had her wounds to care about and she should be resting as much as she could. And she definitely would worry about Ayumi, being such a good person that she was. So lying was the better option.

Kishinuma looked, like he was about to start arguing, but Ms. Yui nudged him to the side, so he obediently closed his mouth. Instead, they talked of the less important stuff, like the upcoming mid–term exams. Weird, how their perspective changed, just in a few days. Once, all test–related stuff was so very important and failing ever smaller quiz looked like a very serious problem. At least for people who were planning on continuing their education. Now, however, it was just a mild annoyance. At the same time, it was also a distraction, good enough to keep a mind away from what had happened, even if or a few short moments.

"Kishinuma, can I talk with you for a moment?" Ayumi asked. She was getting ready to go. To tell the truth, she was partially hoping that he wouldn't agree, even if that was quite implausible. Especially after Kishinuma admitted to be bored out of his mind in this place.

"Uh, sure?" he blinked and stood up. He was moving slower than usual, more careful. With so many bruises, it was no surprise, really. Ayumi herself was covering her legs with thick, black tights, using the low temperature as an excuse. "I have to go anyway. The nurses are going to chew me alive if I'm not in my room before the supper."

"They just let walk around like that?"

"They are fine with it, as long as I'm back during the meals and at night," he shrugged. "Besides, they know where to look for me if they needs something... so, uh, what do you want to talk about?"

Ayumi bit her lip.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what?"

"I, uh..." Ayumi looked away. "I wasn't too nice when you saved my skin. And so many times, too!"

"You were just scared out of your wits, people react in weird ways when they are afraid," Kishinuma just shrugged. "Don't sweat over it."

"But...!" Ayumi protested. "And when you got back, I still-"

She was just plain nasty, throwing accusations right at him, even if she knew perfectly well that Kishinuma did all in his might to save everyone. Even two completely unknown girls and had enough sense to exchange numbers, so they could check on each other.

"I said, don't sweat over it, Shinozaki. Seriously," Kishinuma smiled gently. "I know that waiting is sometimes the worst of it all and because of me you were stuck for several hours just sitting there. But after what Yuki did to you..."

"It wasn't her fault," she repeated dully.

"I know," Kishinuma sucked in the breath. "But you have no idea how terrifying it was from my perspective. You were screaming in pain and I had no idea how to help you at all. And then you wanted to go back there. I didn't want to... I don't think I would be able to stay sane, hearing you screaming like that one more time."

"Don't talk like it was something selfish," Ayumi frowned at him. "It wasn't. Really."

"So..." Kishinuma looked away. Like he deliberately didn't want to see her face. Or was afraid of what his eyes could meet. It was a very odd expression, completely out of place while on his face. Kishinuma was all smirks and snarky remarks, not something so oddly melancholic like that. "We're cool now?"

"We're cool," Ayumi nodded.

They said their goodbyes and parted ways at the entrance to his room.


End file.
